


Night Daze

by habenaria_radiata



Category: Persona 3, Shin Megami Tensei: Devil Survivor, Shin Megami Tensei: Devil Survivor 2
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, F/M, Gen, M/M, Slow Burn, Spoilers
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-08-28
Updated: 2017-02-09
Packaged: 2018-04-17 18:10:38
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 18
Words: 34,192
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4676351
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/habenaria_radiata/pseuds/habenaria_radiata
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Life is all about choices.  Some of those choices are simple.  Some of them are a little more complicated.  Sometimes the choices are trivial, and sometimes the choices directly affect the fates of billions of lives that hang over your head like the Sword of Damocles.  And sometimes, those big, heavy, cumbersome choices -- the only ones at your disposal -- are stupid, so what choice do you <i>really</i> have but to say fuck the police and choose something entirely different?</p>
<p>At the very end of his ordeal, Kazuya Minegishi chooses the last option, and all of the fallout that comes with it.</p>
<p>
  <b>Contains spoilers for Devil Survivor, Devil Survivor 2, and Persona 3.</b>
</p>
<p>
  <b>Currently on hiatus.</b>
</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you for reading! I'd like to note that I'm writing this from the perspective of a person who has only played the original Devil Survivor rather than Overclocked. I'm aware that there's a lot of additional characterization I wasn't witness to, so I apologize in advance if anything here doesn't gel with that.
> 
> This work is dedicated to **Naoihe** , **Quietlynaoya** , and my darling wife.
> 
> I hope very much that you enjoy it! I'll be updating the tags as the work progresses to reflect an accurate tally of characters and relationships.

    His very first thought was that raw _power_ tasted like the harshest, brightest flames that crouched within the deepest crevices of Hell.  The gruesome tower reached for him and poured it into him like molten sunlight, scorching his tongue and burning down his throat.  It felt like ash in his nostrils, like an inferno crawling up beneath every single one of his fragile fingernails and roaring up his arms.  It was as if he'd split the earth itself, and he swallowed every drop of its churning core until it felt like he would burst.  For a drawn out, agonizing and blissfully rapturous moment, he felt that his skin would disintegrate, and from inside him would spring forth a newly blazing sun.  
  
    As he staggered back to his feet, he could smell phantom smoke, and his limbs were still thrumming in both exquisite pain and a razored sort of ecstasy.  He felt as if very little separated him from the entire universe at large.  Perhaps he could snap his fingers, and the planets would realign themselves as he saw fit.  Or maybe he could spread his hands and crush the world between them to rebuild it anew.  
  
    Abel did not try.  Rather, as he came spiraling back into himself, his eyes boring into his own pale, sweat-pearled palms, he became aware of the other voices.  Distantly, he realized that he'd heard them buzzing in his ears for a few minutes or so, and Abel imagined he may even have answered one of them.  Atsuro, probably, because when his gaze flickered over to his cousin, Abel didn't feel especially inclined to talk to him.  Naoya had a familiar smirk plastered across his face that indicated he was extremely pleased with himself, and Abel regarded him silently.  Naoya always was awfully taken with his own intelligence.  
  
    Slowly, he lowered his quivering arms.  His entire body still felt ready to explode.  Possibility upon possibility stretched before him like an endless ocean, dancing at the tips of his fingers.  He was the King of Bel.  The taste of freedom tantalized him, beckoned him, and Abel could not contain himself and the massive waves of power that radiated unchecked from his body.  Something like unbridled euphoria seized him.  Oh, the things he could do, the things he _would_ do-  
  
    Abel was jarred abruptly from the surge of fantasies that overswept him by the piercing command of Naoya's voice, and Abel's eyes cut over to him.  
  
    "Now, make your declaration..."  Naoya paused, and he took the moment to fix his pointed and challenging smirk directly at Abel's face.  "Declare that demonkind will rise up against God!  At the sound of your voice, your demon army will gather in a joyful chorus!  Everything will change!  Let us begin our new world!"  
  
    From the corner of his eye, Abel noted that Atsuro was deathly pale.  He gripped at his stomach as if he might be ill at any moment, and he was watching Abel with an expression of sheer helplessness twisting his face.  It would be fascinating to contemplate how he could actually taste Atsuro's fear, like a bitter drop of vinegar coursing along his tongue -- if he had the time for that.  He was rather too focused on his cousin.  His brother, really, Abel mused, and a faint little curl of a smile flickered over his mouth.  
  
    "No," Abel said, and he was amused to note that Naoya's face had frozen in a strange sort of half-sneer and something else that was a great deal more unamused.  
  
    "What?"  His tone suggested it was only partially a question.  Abel cocked his head at him as his smile sharpened.  
  
    He decided not to repeat himself.  He swung his body to face Naoya fully, spreading his arms in a hollow mockery of the messiah he could have become.  This time, Naoya remained silent, and Abel watched as his ankles trembled.  The sheer force of Abel's power threatened to bowl him over, and if Abel had allowed himself to look over at Atsuro, he'd have noticed that his friend was only barely standing himself.  
  
    "I don't want to."  
  
    Naoya stood there thunderstruck, and Abel continued with a strange sort of serenity settling over his shoulders and smoothing out his features.  His calm demeanor, however, belied the chaos raging inside him, threatening to overwhelm Abel entirely in its near vibrating throes of glee.  He saw stretched before him thousands of different things he could do, of commands he could give, and he felt the knowledge, so sweetly intimate and deep and **certain** , that every one of those commands would be met if he chose to give them.  
  
    Swiftly, Abel cut off the swirling thoughts, and they scattered like butterflies as he leveled his gaze on Naoya.  Cocking his head, he smiled again, and he lifted a hand to snap his fingers.  Around his shoulders slid a black cape that flowed all down his back, the collar curling delicately around his head and curving into two sharp points that framed his face.  
  
    Truthfully, it was a little cheesy, but Abel could live with that.  He rather liked it.  
  
    "Atsuro."  
  
    Atsuro's body gave a startled jerk, and Abel's lips pursed into a faint frown.  "...Thank you for everything."  The tiny little frown eased into a soft smile, and Abel took in the startled shock alighting behind Atsuro's dark eyes as his words made impact.  
  
    "I've decided to do something different," Abel announced, and he lifted his chin to survey his only lingering companions -- as well as the demons hovering in awe, their inhuman eyes pinning him there as if he were a particularly fascinating insect trapped in glass.  
  
    He would lift the lockdown himself.  He had the power to do so, after all, and he snapped one more time.  "Be seeing you," he murmured, and every single demon seemed to wink out of existence one after the other.  He fancied he could hear the subtle 'pop!'s crack through the air as each demon disappeared.  
  
    Abel didn't linger.  The instant the last demon vanished, Abel felt his body tighten, the very air around him bearing down with sudden pressure.  Abel closed his eyes before the darkness overtook him, and he followed the demons to their Hell.  
  
    It was a bit of a shame, though, he had to admit to himself as the world spun around him in a dizzying array of unearthly shapes and colors.  He would have liked the chance to see their faces when they realized what'd happened.


	2. Chapter 2

    Time passed him by in what Abel could only describe as a complete blur of insanity.  He felt absolutely _manic_ with the need to explore his new domain.  The moment Hell swallowed him, it was as if his last threads of humanity were snipped, and he abdicated that particular mantle with eager aplomb.  For Abel, it felt like his connection to his own mind was severed entirely.  His frantic wandering consisted of little more than drinking in every new experience before reaching for the next without pausing for a moment's thought, each new reality of his world sliding into his head and receding back like an ocean wave to make way for another.  
  
    If he were to be asked how long he had been there, Abel would have responded, quite sincerely, that it could not have been more than a handful of hours.  He hadn't slept at all since he'd arrived, or consumed anything more substantial than the ash and the soul-soothing smoke that seemed to blanket every inch of his much adored realm.  And there was so _much_ of it to explore.  
  
    It was, of course, not a part of the 'plan' he'd made for himself upon becoming the King of Pandemonium.  Hell was simply so much more than he had ever dreamed, and it seemed to offer no end of new things to discover.  Abel was enthralled with everything from the lakes of writhing fire to the deepest pits of black ice to the swirling miasmas of purple fog that enshrouded demons he'd never even encountered before.  
  
    Fresh from his discovery that one could go higher, Abel was determined to scale the most dizzying apexes of his kingdom.  Naturally, he had always thought of Hell as being something _beneath_ them -- for it was the 'underworld', after all, where Lucifer was cast down as his star burned away.  This place was rather more lively than all of that, however, and it seemed to have a mind (and geography) that was as living and breathing as any demon. Abel had already found several places that warped and shifted while his back was turned.  
  
    While demons were scattered all over, they remained clustered near a handful of places in particular.  Only stragglers remained out as far as he liked to come, and that was usually a good sign.  The last time he'd found an area that was devoid of life, Abel had found sealed inside a forest of bones a truly immense behemoth that would have haunted the most depraved of minds. He'd never forget it as long as he lived.  When one dwelled in Hell, one hardly had to sleep to be chased by nightmares.  
  
    He'd been wandering upwards for hours when he felt an alien sensation tugging gently inside his skull.  All around him were dull embers of flame, and Abel stepped lithely over solid blocks of what looked to be volcanic marble when he noticed that he hadn't seen a single demon for quite some time.  The strange feeling in his skull spiked, then, and the idea of finding another creature like the twisted, rotting mass of skeletal deer brought his senses sharpening on a knife's edge.  
  
    He had no idea what he would find this time, but he was greatly looking forward to the surprise.  Whatever it was, it had a hook inside his brain, drawing him in its direction like a squirming fish.  That was novel enough that Abel followed it, heedless of danger and cloaked in the godlike throes of power that flowed from his skin like water.  Whatever it was, why should he be afraid?  
  
    Up he went along the strange stone steps, spiraling to unknown heights that barely registered to him.  He had yet to feel hunger since coming here, much less weariness.  Rather, the higher he climbed, the more excited he became until he ascended the last step and faced it.  
  
    Before him, it stood, blocking him from the dark and subtle magic still coaxing him forward -- another creature he'd never seen before, this one even bigger than the three-faced deer.  It seemed absurd, and Abel's eyes lit up as he took it in.  It moved like animated lightning, its limbs long and thrumming with energy, and the strangely vague shape of its face unhinged around what looked to be a jaw filled with gruesome fangs.  
  
    Abel tilted his head back, the hems of his cape whipping around his ankles, and he lifted one of his hands.  The creature's legs bowed like a tree before a windstorm and collapsed, and it rushed to the ground in a pile of loose, sleeping limbs.  Amused, Abel lifted himself from the ground and sailed over it, touching back down and looking up only to fall sharply still.  
  
    Abruptly, he noticed that the feeling of a fishhook was gone, and his eyes were locked onto the thing the creature was guarding.  The feeling of that dark, surreal power beyond it was gone entirely.  All he could seem to pay attention to was the blinding whiteness of the statue, and Abel swallowed as he approached it.  
  
    He could hear and feel...nothing.  The sensation of it was so sudden that he was utterly taken aback.  He felt like he'd been slammed back into his own body, and Abel was almost dizzy as he shook his head.  
  
    The statue was utterly exquisite.  It stood before what appeared to be some sort of shuttered catacomb, its arms stretched out and long white legs pointed straight down and pressed tightly together.  It was like witnessing a crucifixion without a vulgar cross to bloody the image, and Abel was entirely perplexed.  What was this thing?  Why _here_?  Its face was achingly beautiful and serene, but here it was enshrined by hellfire and darkness.  
  
    Abel stepped closer, and his body jerked in its unease as his heart seemed to smash forward against his rib cage.  Gods, the statue looked so young.  His body and his hair and his face were entirely white, like he was made out of cracked stone, and the arms were long and slender with subtle muscle.  He looked so...real.  Uncomfortably real.  
  
    He had no idea how long he stared at it before he was jarred back into awareness, and Abel blinked as he came back into himself.  The silence was beginning to unnerve him deeply.  He had felt something earlier, and he knew it hadn't simply vanished.  Squinting, Abel studied the statue again, and he hesitated before he placed a palm against its cool, smooth cheek.  
  
    Nothing.  It did not burn him as he had halfway expected it would.  It simply felt like stone, and he let his hand slide away.  Still, he couldn't shake the feeling there was something he was missing.  An ordinary statue would not be guarded by a slavering beast of that sort.  
  
    Frustrated, Abel was ready to go beyond it when it finally occurred to him that all he could feel was _himself_.  He was so accustomed to letting his overwhelming magic fly freely that it billowed around him like a second cloak.  Concentrating, Abel squeezed his eyes shut, and he drew every drop of power back into his body, feeling his skin constricting around it.  His limbs spasmed in discomfort.  It felt like trying to squeeze the ocean inside of a balloon, but after some considerable effort, the crackling energy that snapped around him was gone.  
  
    Instantly, his knees buckled.  Abel collapsed to the ground as the flood of power rushed over him, threatening to drown him as his fingernails bit helplessly at the ground.  Something sounded in the air, but Abel could hardly identify it through the rush of what felt like wind tearing at him.  His chest burned.  His head tightened so much he felt as though his eyes would burst from the pressure, and he lifted his head to try and peer at the incredible statue as he was buffeted over and over by power that was so much greater than him.  
  
    With a sudden burst of desperation, Abel let go of the tight reins he held on himself.  His own power sluiced out of him, calming the onslaught from the statue and stilling the air around him, and he was once more surrounded by an eerie silence -- save the ragged pants of his own breathing.  Still on his knees, Abel shook like a frightened animal, and his fingers clawed at the front of his shirt as his chest continued to burn with a phantom sensation of warmth.  
  
    With a start, Abel realized his face was wet, and he reached up with a quivering hand to feel tears on his cheeks.  When he looked up once again to see the statue's unmoved, gentle face, Abel's heart dropped like a rock.  
  
    He realized, then, just what he had discovered.  
  
    He was looking into the face of the Messiah.


	3. Chapter 3

    Abel was so disturbed by his discovery that he had to take a break from the underworld.  It was time for him to go back home, and he was accompanied by his favorite Pixie (who chose to tag along without any invitation whatsoever).  
  
    Currently, she was wedged beneath the sharp collar of his cloak, her tiny arms wound around his neck and her wings folded back like an irritated cat.  "Your Lordship," she hissed, pressing closer to the back of his neck and making a grumpy noise, "the humans are staring at you."  
  
    Abel did not respond to her for a moment.  He tilted his head where it was pressed against the glass, and his gaze flickered over to the sidewalk where people were, indeed, staring at him with varying degrees of disapproval.  The cape tended to do that, though.  And the cat ear headphones.  Abel simply rolled his eyes and turned back to the window, resting his cheek against the cool glass and gazing through it forlornly.  
  
    Atsuro hadn't noticed him.  He looked tired, hunched over his laptop with dark circles beneath his eyes, but whatever he was doing, he was entirely focused on it.  It was very like him, and Abel managed a distant, sad sort of smile before he felt two small hands yanking at the corners of his lips.  Irritated, he jerked away from the window and whirled around.  " _What_."  
  
    "Master.  Just go say something to him."  
  
    He felt his entire body still, and his chest seized up.  Abel had felt so certain he'd only been exploring for a few days.  Maybe a week or two.  "I can't," he snapped, and he swatted her away from his face as she squealed in displeasure.  She didn't know anything.  What could he possibly say?  
  
    His little foray into the demon world did not span the course of a few days, or even a few weeks.  No.  Abel vanished for more than an entire _year_.  Two of them, to be precise.  
  
    He abandoned his best friend, and just thinking about it made his stomach churn.  Abel had not eaten, or slept, or done anything remotely human in over seven hundred days.  Even his eyes felt withered, as if noticing it had made his lack of sleep sit up and realize it had a lot of catching up to do.  Enough catching up to perhaps drop him into a coma.  
  
    Two years.  He had left Atsuro alone all that time with nothing more than "Be seeing you."  That fucking flippant tone he'd used nauseated Abel to no end.  Be seeing you.  Or not.  He pulled away from the window and slid down against the wall, digging his fingers into his own hair and tugging at the roots.  There was absolutely no telling what had happened during the entire time he went missing.  Everyone probably thought he was dead.  He didn't deserve to ask Atsuro for forgiveness, much less say hello to him, and Abel tightened his fingers against his scalp.  
  
    What could he possibly say to his best friend to make what he'd done okay?  
  
    He was thoroughly entrenched in his one person pity party when he noted that Pixie was crawling out from beneath his collar, and she placed herself squarely on his shoulder before thwapping him in the face with her wings.  "You should let me kill them.  They don't know who they are staring at."  With a snort, Abel jarred her from his shoulder until she fluttered into the air with a thoroughly haughty little huff.  
  
    "No," he said.  It occurred to him that it was probably a mistake to go through so much effort to fuse Megidolaon onto a creature with so much fucking attitude.  Still, she managed to coax a smile out of him, and Abel slowly climbed to his feet before he reached out to snatch Pixie out of the air.  "Not today, brat."  
  
    He lifted his gaze to the window to see Atsuro turned in his seat, and Abel's insides twisted, cold and hard as wire.  Atsuro was staring right at him, his features pulled into a stark look of disbelief.  Christ, he saw him.  Abel could feel his mind go black with panic; his cloak billowed around him, swallowing both him and Pixie and constricting around them tightly.  
  
    Hell dragged them both back into its comforting bowels even while Pixie squirmed inside his cloak and kicked in irritation against Abel's torso.  He was rather too numb to care.  He collapsed back inside his kingdom enmeshed in something he hadn't experienced in what felt like an eternity.  Cowardice.  
  
    So much for the King of Bel.  It figured he'd be able to feel the weight of his own absence only after confronting it.  It was like bricks against his shoulders, pressing down on the tender vertebrae of his spine.  Abel drew himself up tight, pushing his face into his knees.  Atsuro... Even after his other friends abandoned him, Atsuro didn't waver an inch.  He was loyal and steadfast in the face of a demon tower from hell.  The most grotesque of monsters and the most hopeless situations and the constant threats of death weren't enough to shake Atsuro's support for him.  And Abel repaid all of that by disappearing on a complete and utter whim.  
  
    He had to fix it.  Abel lifted his head with a start, nearly knocking poor Pixie out of the air.  He had to fix it, and he would.  Atsuro didn't let a week of pure torture get in the way of their friendship.  He cast aside his own fear to fight right alongside him no matter what choices he made, even when it seemed imminent that Abel would take on God himself.  After all of that, after everything they'd been through, Abel owed it to him to move hell and earth to make this right.  He was the King of Pandemonium, after all.  What was time itself but another thing to shake up?


	4. Chapter 4

    "It's not going to work, Master."  
  
    "So you said," Abel shot back, his voice curt.  After a beat, however, he softened, reaching for his shoulder to muss at her perfectly coiffed red hair.  "But you're forgetting who you're talking to.  I'm too nice to you.  And stop calling me that.  We've had this talk."  
  
    He allowed himself a fair bit of amusement as he felt her bristling against his shoulder, her little wings vibrating a bit before she burst into flight and sped ahead of him.  "I'm serious!  You can't go up and down!  It doesn't work like that."  
  
    Abel ignored her as deftly as she ignored his request.  She'd been repeating this mantra since Abel decided to make his way to the labyrinth.  He had known it would be good for _something_ , so it felt gratifying to be right about it.  Assuming Pixie was wrong, anyway.  She had told him over and over again that his brilliant little plan was impossible, but he wasn't ready to give up without at least trying it.  He owed Atsuro to do this.  
  
    "You can _only go sideways_ ," she asserted -- loudly -- and Abel had to reach up to push her out of his face.  
  
    "I get it."  Christ, but she was persistent.  Abel had to sidestep her to avoid plowing into her tiny body.  "I'm still going to try.  Even if it doesn't work, it's not like it'll kill me."  His own words coaxed a dark sort of chuckle out of him, and Abel continued on his way with Pixie trailing behind him.  
  
    Beneath him, he could see the labyrinth stretched out before him in an endless array of corridors and doors, its walls seemingly impossibly high and the magic of time and space permeating its every inch.  Abel breathed it in deeply, his eyes fluttered shut.  He loved the feeling of heavy magic mingling with his own, and he stood still for a few moments while Pixie hovered nervously behind his shoulders.  
  
    "Master," she said, snagging at his collar.  "It is easy to get lost."  
  
    "Well...that's expected.  I mean...it's a labyrinth.  And it's _Abel_ , damn it.  I can't take you anywhere."  Pixie apparently didn't appreciate his sarcasm, and she tugged hard at his hair and fluttered away.  
  
    "I'm serious!  It would be bad if you couldn't come back."  
  
    "Fft.  Couldn't.  There is nothing I can't do."  He swung around to face her with a smile that managed to be both barbed and sweet, and he spread his arms.  It was enough for her to acquiesce.  Pixie sank into the air and hugged his neck.  "I promise I'll be alright.  Besides, I thought you were coming with me?  Between the two of us, we don't exactly make up a stellar navigator, but I'm sure we'll figure it out.  How hard could it be, right?"  
  
    She was appeased for the time being, falling still as she climbed back onto his shoulder.  They were awfully close now, and Abel was more than ready to walk it.  But before they could...he felt the gentle tug of that, by now, familiar perfume of deeply dark magic.  Abel fell still as a stone.  "Pixie."  She tilted her head.  "Do you feel that?"  
  
    "Feel what?"  
  
    "That..."  He stopped again, and he groped for the right words to describe it before he gave up.  He couldn't describe it in a way that made sense even remotely to anyone not occupying his head.  He was content to ignore it when he realized he could simply show it to her.  It's not like he could possibly fuck up this time any more than he already had, so making a pit stop wasn't going to hurt matters.  Besides, he was dreadfully curious to hear her opinion of the statue.  
  
    Abel turned away from the vast labyrinth and followed that gently beckoning magic.  Now that he knew where it was, it took him only minutes to reach, and he brought the enormous lightning creature down without even breaking his stride.  As soon as it fell, however, he felt Pixie shrink, and he turned to see her curling up within his collar and puffing up like an enraged cat.  
  
    Slowly, Abel fell back a step.  "Are you okay?"  Her nod was a sullen one, but she didn't look to be in pain.  Abel was relieved, and he lifted a hand to wind his collar around her.  "What do you make of that?"  
  
    Pixie squirmed close to him, regarding the statue with open suspicion.  "I don't like it."  
  
    Abel hesitated a moment.  "Is it hurting you?"  
  
    But she shook her head, and she folded herself up in his collar like a sulky toddler.  It was enough to dispel his remaining concern, and Abel snickered at her.  "...It's because you're here," she mused.  "That's the only reason it's not."  
  
    "...I see."  It did make sense.  He knew without knowing, deep his bones, that the statue was the Messiah himself.  Pixie probably had that same instinctual awareness that he did.  But it was a small measure of comfort that his own outrageous power was protecting her from the same thing he'd experienced earlier.  
  
    He decided not to subject her to it any longer.  Abel turned and strode away from the blessedly tranquil and achingly beautiful statue with Pixie tucked safely away against his neck.  
  
    She stirred once they were a safe distance away.  "Is that what you felt?"  
  
    "Ah...no, actually.  Not the statue.  There's something behind it."  
  
    "What?"  She looked rather mystified by the idea of it.  "I couldn't feel anything except for you.  What is behind it?"  
  
    Abel was at as much of a loss as she was.  He shrugged with a tight sort of frown and kept moving, walking towards the edge of the ravine housing the labyrinth and leaping down.  It was strange to know that she couldn't feel it.  
  
    As intriguing as it all was, though, it wasn't the time.  They had far more important matters to attend to, like repairing his ruined relationship with his closest friend in the world.  That was more than enough to jar any loosely rattling distractions from his head, and Abel squared his shoulders.  
  
    The labyrinth opened up before him, and Abel stepped inside.  He was not intimidated.  Atsuro had faced down worse things than a bunch of spooky doors for him.  All he had to do was find the right one...which was the tricky part, really.  With millions of doors to contend with, the odds were not exactly in his favor.  
  
    Abel did not care.  Upon finding the first door, Abel summoned every inch of his pulsing, writhing power and pushed it open to stride inside.


	5. Chapter 5

    The sunlight practically blasted at his retinas.  It somehow felt even worse than it had last time.  Abel spent several moments sitting on the sidewalk and squeezing his eyes shut while yet more onlookers earned themselves the eternal disapproval of Pixie.  
  
    "Eugh, I'm the goddamned King of Bel and the sun is what brings me to my knees.  Ridiculous," Abel muttered as he stood and squinted with watery eyes.  When he was finally able to make out his surroundings, Abel was thoroughly interested to find that he was outside the same internet café he'd fled from last time.  He didn't hesitate before he squished his face against the glass to stare inside.  But he didn't see that familiar white hat, and while he hadn't even truly expected to, his shoulders sagged a bit until-  
  
    "Kazuya!"  
  
    His heart shattered at the sound of that voice.  Abel whirled around to see Atsuro smiling brightly and waving at him.  He actually looked happy to see him, but Abel couldn't help noting that Atsuro's genuine and sunny expression was quickly warping into one of befuddlement.  He desperately hoped Atsuro wasn't about to come to his senses and punch him in the face as he so richly deserved.  
  
    "Dude, what's with the cape?  Are you- are you, uh, getting into cosplay or something?  I never would have guessed.  I- I mean, that's cool, if you're into that."  
  
    "Wh-"  Abel fell still.  His limbs felt bizarrely heavy as he stared back at him, his eyebrows slowly furrowing.  "I don't-"  What did he mean?  He saw him materialize it.  He was right there after the fight with Babel.  Did he _forget_?  
  
    He collapsed entirely into silence.  This was wrong.  Had he gone too far back?  Pre-lockdown?  Shit, of course it wasn't going to be that easy.  Abel turned away from his best friend and fled for the second time, confusion and fear gnawing away at his stomach.  He had to find a newspaper.  Something with the date.  Maybe he could figure out what went wrong.  
  
    It wasn't hard to spot a passerby holding one, and Abel snatched it right out of his hand and opened it savagely, his eyes sharp as they tore across the page.  
  
    It was the same year he had just abandoned.  
  
    Abel could feel his rational human thoughts drain out of his head, and he ripped the paper in two and burned it to ash with his bare hands.  Same day.  Same year.  And Atsuro... His throat burned.  For the second time, his cloak snapped around him, closing over his body and whisking him back to the safety of the underworld where he could set things on fire without having the police called.  
  
    But he did not start setting things on fire.  Rather, Abel stopped and took a deep, shuddering breath.  It was one door.  It would be absurd to take that at face value.  He ran headlong back into the labyrinth to find another door, blasting the thing open with his magic.  
  
    Only minutes later he was dumped back into Hell, and Abel tried another...and another...and another.  
  
    Same fucking year.  Same damned day.  
  
    He lost count of how many doors he went through before he plummeted back into Hell for the last time, nearly ripping his hair out in frustration.  He only narrowly avoided taking out a chunk of it when he felt Pixie's tiny hands on his head, and she soothed at him sympathy.  
  
    "Master," she said.  
  
    Abel only tilted his head and leveled his hollow gaze on her.  
  
    "It is as I said.  You can't go up and down.  You can only go sideways."  
  
    He blew an irritated breath between his teeth and narrowed his eyes.  "What does that mean?!  I'm not trying to go up-"  
  
    "That's how time works!  All those doors are parallel.  They're not ahead or behind."  
  
    Abel stopped, and he swallowed sharply.  Not ahead or behind.  Because they were _beside_ , which is what Pixie said.  Albeit in a really weird, roundabout sort of way.  His heart sank into his stomach like a pit.  He fucked up.  He well and truly fucked up and now he couldn't fix it.  He could traverse into parallel worlds.  He could bend all of demonkind to his will with the snap of his fingers.  But apparently time was firmly out of his grasp, and it pissed him off an absurd amount.  
  
    "...There has to be _something_ ," he snarled.  
  
    He felt Pixie's soothing magic, then, and Abel craned his neck to look at her.  "I'm sorry," she said simply.  
  
    Abel couldn't bring himself to respond.  For the first time in two years, he did not feel like the mighty, untouchable King of Bel.  He felt painfully fragile and human, and he curled forward to press his forehead to his knees.


	6. Chapter 6

    Abel allowed himself to stew for what felt like only an hour or so.  He was thoroughly unsurprised, however, when Pixie assured him that his little tantrum lasted exactly two weeks.  By now, he was sharply aware of how _unaware_ he was of the flow of time down in his underworld -- he just wasn't entirely sure what to do about that.  
  
    "You could use Norn," Pixie suggested.  Abel pinched his lips at her.  
  
    "Norn is not actually a clock, Pixie.  I'm pretty sure it's just for...aesthetic, or whatever."  It's not like he'd ever seen that hand move or anything.  "And how the hell do you know how long it's been?  There isn't exactly a bell tower down here.  Do you guys keep a printing press you never told me about?"  
  
    Unfortunately for Abel, Pixie was less than appreciative of his unbearable sarcasm.  Her only response came in the form of a raspberry before she left him to his own surly devices.  Abel sighed and threw his cape over his face.  He probably deserved that.  
  
    As much as he disliked the idea, he really was going to have to do something about this time issue.  He couldn't just wallow around down here in a fit of demonic ennui for God only knew how long while his friends all lived and died without him.  Well, he could, certainly, as the past two years so painfully attested to.  But the idea was not even remotely appealing, and it eventually drove Abel to get up off the filthy lava rocks he'd been lying across for, apparently, two weeks.  
  
    He would simply have to suck it up and return to the human world.  At least for a little while.  
  
    To say that the idea chapped his ass something fierce felt somewhat akin to claiming that taking a knife through the ribs was only mildly inadvisable.  The prospect of committing a lot of arson was still appealing enough to him to be a legitimate concern, and self-discipline was one of those things that was escaping Abel just then.  On the other hand, languishing down here in eternal self-pity was beginning to feel even worse.  What had once enthralled and tantalized him with the promise of everlasting freedom now felt bizarrely suffocating, and while Abel couldn't help but imagine it had everything to do with his own onset of bitterness, that didn't assuage the feeling even remotely.  He just needed to leave and take a breath of actual _air_.  And probably get a watch or something.  
  
    With those relatively undemanding goals in mind, Abel left his realm once more -- and decided immediately that obtaining a pair of sunglasses was going to have to go on that little to-do list.  This sunlight shit was insufferable.  
  
    Abel let his eyes adjust to the brightness before he set off with his beloved cloak snapping behind him.  He did have to admit, if only to himself, that it was nice to be...home.  It was also nice to be able to walk amongst the gawking civilians without having to rein in a tiny, enraged Medusa.  
  
    The sunglasses were the first order of business, but it proved to be a futile adventure.  Every single pair he tried on looked unforgivably absurd with his cape, and frankly, Abel knew where his priorities lay.  He abandoned that particular pursuit in favor of finding a decent watch.  It was a far simpler endeavor, but Abel spent an inordinate amount of time finding one that had the date on it too.  
  
    Having, technically, completed two thirds of his to-do list, Abel decided that he would have to be content to consider that a win.  After spending two years and at least two weeks more doing literally nothing other than breathing and careening aimlessly through life, he was going to have to settle for the small victories.  Nevertheless, he felt...unsatisfied.  Or something else entirely that was eluding him.  Something niggled at his brain that he couldn't quite identify as Abel leaned back against a nearby wall, and he allowed himself a few minutes to watch the passersby going about their business.  
  
    And that's what it was.  Abel felt _unsettled_.  
  
    It struck him how bizarrely normal everything appeared.  It left Abel feeling very much as if he were back in high school, and the sudden realization was more than a little disorienting.  Everything was just normal, and every single experience he had inside that lock-down screamed at him that things should be anything but.  Abel might have been left struggling with a two year gap that felt like an eternity, but across an entire society, such a time span was little more than the blink of an eye.  It was simply not even close to the amount of time it would take for the world to right itself after mankind bore witness to the demons they saw that week.  
  
    Truthfully, it disturbed him a little.  But it also made him curious.  He slid away from the wall and made his way to the nearest library.  
  
    As luck would have it, the library was about as fruitful as his quest for sunglasses was.  No matter how much Abel looked, he could find nothing on the lock-down.  It was as if it simply never happened, which meant that -- as far as this place was concerned -- it clearly didn't.  It rather mystified him.  He hadn't used the labyrinth this time, so it should have, by all rights, been his own world and his own time.  
  
    It was just a shame Pixie wasn't here to enlighten him, because Abel had a feeling that he ought to be slightly more alarmed than he was.

    With that unease still draped over him, Abel returned to his Hell, his new watch strapped on his wrist and the comforting weight of his cloak around his neck.  Perhaps he could find Pixie and dig for some answers.  With this labyrinth, he may have bitten off more than he could chew.


	7. Chapter 7

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter was beta read by quietlynaoya, to whom I am greatly indebted. Thank you so much, Naoya!

* * *

 

   Abel was not even vaguely aware of the sweat springing up along his pale skin and rolling down it like pearls.  His eyes were fixed and unwavering, burning sharply, ever so slightly too wide and boring into the stone.  He had mused to himself that he may have bitten off more than he could chew.  The answer to that was a resounding _yes, yes you did, Pixie was right about everything, and now you are fucked_.  
  
    "Pixie," he said.  
  
    He felt her shuffling against his back, and her tiny arms tightened around his throat.  It was the only form of response she offered to him, but it was one he understood very well indeed.  
  
    "Do you see that?" he asked.  His voice cracked slightly.  "Am I hallucinating?"  
  
    "No, Master.  I see it."  
  
    Abel fell silent once more, swallowing against what felt like a hard fist of coal in his throat.  The statue looked back at him with its perfectly serene and unseeing face, and another cold shiver sliced down his spine.  The sweat was beginning to feel like ice pricking at his skin, and he most certainly noticed it then.  "...Are _we_ hallucinating?"  Pixie made an irritated noise back at him.  Clearly, no, they were not, and no amount of denial was going to keep the mounting panic inside him at bay forever.  
  
    The statue looked very similar.  Its limbs were just as long and just as slender, corded with the same subtle muscle, and its arms stretched out as if to protect the world from the weight of its own sins.  Its hair framed the statue's soft face, curling around its ears.  
  
    But the statue was very much a girl.  
  
    "I don't understand."  Abel grit his teeth.  This was wrong.  Everything about it.  Statues could not simply change on a whim.  This person was absolutely not a demon, and she was not part of the geography of this hellish dimension.  How could this have happened?  Who was she?  She felt exactly the same as the other statue had, like she was holding back some dark, mysterious power while she radiated an ocean's worth of her own.  
  
    He didn't understand.  But Pixie did, and she made a small sound that frightened Abel more than he cared to admit.  She whispered, "We're lost, Master."  After the first door he'd gone through, Abel had panicked and teleported rather than going back through the door.  And he'd done it repeatedly, which meant that there was no telling which Hell this was or which door he was trapped behind.  The only thing he did know was that it was not his own.  The demons weren't right, the landmarks weren't right, and this statue...  
  
    The blood rushed so loudly in his ears he couldn't even be certain if Pixie spoke after that.  He stepped forward, extending one ashen hand and reaching for the statue.  
  
    "Master, don-"  
  
    His palm made impact before her words did, and his skin slid across the statue's cheek as his world was blanketed in black.  For several long moments, it was like being back in Hell for the very first time.  Time itself felt suspended as Abel drifted in a sea of black, unattached to his own body.  Frankly, it felt better than standing knee deep in self-loathing and demonic angst.  
  
    He opened his eyes, then, and a soft groan slid from his throat.  His head felt strangely...heavy and naked all at once.  Gods, he was tired.  His own existence was beginning to take one hell of a toll on him.  Abel felt entirely too tempted to go back to sleep when his body gave a start.  Why was he even in a bed?  
  
    Slowly, he pushed himself to sit and pressed his fingertips to his eyelids.  When had he fallen asleep?  Had the statue made him pass out?  Immediately, Abel snorted.  He might be exhausted and ever so slightly hysterical, but he wasn't about to faint over something like this.  Honestly.  
  
    He dropped his hand and looked down, his lips drawing into a tight frown.  He was pretty sure his nails had never looked like that.  He turned them both over to stare at his fingertips.  His nails were long, smooth, and faintly...pearly looking.  He could feel the dread mounting in him when he finally took in the remaining picture.  He was wearing a lacy white bra, because apparently, he'd developed enough of a bust to fill one.  In an instant, his stomach lurched, and he scrambled to his feet inside this alien room and this alien body.  
  
    Disoriented though he was, he was able to find a sink with a small mirror inside the room.  He was quick to go for it, turning the taps and splashing water onto his face in the barest hope that he would wake up and find Pixie berating him for his idiocy like he so deserved.  Of course, he did not wake up, and now he just had a wet face and damp hair curling against his cheeks and tickling at his ears.  
  
    With a short jerk of his head, Abel looked up and found himself firmly arrested by the mirror.  Christ, it was her.  The statue was looking back at him through the glass, her eyes every bit as bright red as his own.  But she was very much not a statue.  No.  She was beautifully alive, her cheeks ever so slightly flushed and soft auburn hair falling into her eyes.  
  
    Abel felt himself open his mouth, but his female reflection did not.  What the fuck was happening to him?  What was this?  He could feel his own heart pounding in his chest, but was it her heart, or his own?  
  
    He tried to move when a fist cracked hard against the door, banging a desperate beat into the wood.  The girl very nearly jumped out of her skin, and so did he.  
  
    "Wake up!"  There was a female voice on the other side of the door Abel did not recognize, but before he was spared even a moment to react, the frazzled girl called out again.  "S- Sorry!  I'm coming in!"  As she warned, the door burst open with a crack, and Abel was incredibly annoyed to find himself jumping yet again.  
  
    The instant the strange girl stepped across the threshold, she actually stopped, hesitating long enough to make the situation feel as awkward as it did tense.  "A- ahh... Y- You need to get dressed!  I don't have time to explain.  We have to get out of here, now!"  Honestly, it was strange to hear the way her voice was caught between sounding completely distressed and utterly scandalized all at once.  It made Abel's hackles raise like an irritated cat.  _Go fuck yourself_ , he snarled.  What kind of asshole slept in their entire school uniform?  
  
    But he did not say that.  Instead, Abel was surprised to feel himself rush to his feet to begin pulling on clothes.  "Okay!  I'm coming."  He tugged on a black jacket and the closest pair of shoes as the other girl's fingernails dug into the door frame.  "Hurry!  Downstairs!  We'll leave through the back door!"  She let go of the door frame, then, pausing as if to move.  "Wait!  Take this!  Just in case!"  
  
    She thrust something into his hands that honestly made him do a double take.  What in god's name was this?  She really wanted him to use a fucking naginata?  Please.  He was the god damned King of Bel.  All he had to do to inflict unspeakable pain was snap his fingers.  He meant to tell her so too when she interrupted him, grasping at his slender wrist and tugging him into the hallway.  "Okay, let's go!  Follow me!"  
  
    Together, both of them thundered down the stairway.  Her fingers were wire tight as they dug into his wrist, but Abel was far too disoriented to snipe at her.  This place was bizarre.  Where on earth was he?  It was so dark it was difficult to see, and all he could hear were the shudders of the building as something smashed up against the outside walls.  The stairs shook so hard he very nearly fell to his knees; he was kept upright only by the other girl's grip on his arm.  "Alright... We should be safe now."  
  
    They were almost to the back door when the girl's walkie talkie crackled to life, which was weird, since Abel hadn't even noticed that she had one.  "Takeba, do you read me!?"  
  
    "Y- Yes!  I hear you!"  Even from here, Abel could see that the girl's palms were shaking and slick with sweat.  
  
    The other person's voice clipped through the static once again.  "Be careful!  There's more than one enemy!  The one we're fighting isn't the one Akihiko saw!"  
  
    "What!?"  Once more, the entire building shook.  The one called Takeba gasped audibly and grasped at his hand once again.  "L- Let's pull back!"  Straight back up the stairs they went, Takeba's manicured nails biting into his palm.  Her entire body was tight with coiled fear.  He could almost feel it thrumming through him through their joined hands, and Abel was reminded quite abruptly of Atsuro and the bitter taste of his fear.  It was very surreal and more than a little uncomfortable.  
  
    He was jarred out of his own head by the shatter of glass ringing in his ears.  Behind him, he could hear Takeba's sharp intake of breath as she twisted around.  "What was that?"  He was tempted to roll his eyes.  It seemed pretty fucking obvious what it was -- but in only a moment, he could hear the far more grotesque sounds of slick oil squelching against the carpet. Suddenly her inquiry seemed a lot less absurd.  
  
    "...It's getting closer!"  
  
    Sure enough, the wet noises were fast approaching.  He felt Takeba jerk against him, and she pulled on his arm yet again.  "K- Keep moving!  Hurry!"  
  
    Up and up they went, sprinting up the stairway as quickly as they could.  Takeba pushed him out of the doorway until Abel spilled out onto the roof top, very nearly tripping on his half-skewed loafers.  She slammed the door behind them both and sucked in a deep, heavy breath.  
  
    "The door's locked.  I think we're safe for now..."  
  
    Abel found himself doubting her words very intensely.  Even the sky was an ugly, foreboding green color, as if to reassure him that he was quite right, and they were still boned.  And he was right.  They were spared less than a minute to catch their breath before a supernatural roar cut through the heavy night air.  
  
    He and Takeba turned on instinct.  Directly across the way, Abel could finally see what manner of monster was responsible for that disgusting noise.  Long black fingers slid up along the brick, anchoring themselves on the wall as another hand slowly lifted what appeared to be an empty blue mask.  The fucking thing actually swiveled it, too, like it could really see them through its empty eye holes.  Abel's face twisted.  He had never seen anything like it.  Whatever it was, it wasn't a demon.  Abel thoroughly disliked not knowing what the hell it was.  
  
    He liked it even less when it raised eleven more hands, roughly half of which were clenched around gleaming metal blades.  Takeba damn well nearly backed into him.  "You've gotta be kidding me.  It climbed up the wall...!?"  Gods, she might as well have been Yuzu 2.0.  It might have annoyed him, but really, it was kind of comforting to be around someone who could always be relied upon to fill the silence with something painfully obvious.  It was almost like his life was back to normal.  
  
    "That's the thing that attacked this place... We call them Shadows!"  Abel had no idea why Takeba was telling him that right then, but he filed it away regardless.  The creature had managed to drag itself over the wall with a wet slap, and it was advancing on them a little more quickly than Abel might have guessed a puddle of ooze with arms could.  
  
    But for some reason, he wasn't moving.  It seemed like a pretty good call to get the hell out of this thing's way, but he felt completely frozen into place.  As undignified as it was for the King of Bel...he was beginning to panic a bit.  
  
    "O- Oh yeah... I have to fight..."  He glanced over to see Takeba moving into something that seemed vaguely like an attack stance, but her face belied what the rest of her body was doing.  Truthfully, the poor girl looked terrified out of her wits, even as she was attempting to talk herself up.  "I... I can summon mine... No problem..."  
  
    Takeba swallowed audibly.  She looked like Abel felt, her skin practically glittering with sweat beneath the eerie yellow moonlight.  "Okay.  Here goes," she muttered, and she whipped out what looked to be an actual gun.  Abel's insides revolted all at once as she thrust it against her forehead, metal pressed to slick flesh.  _What the **fuck**?!_ he screeched.  _What are you doing, Takeba?_  
  
    As much as he wanted to actually scream, it wasn't happening.  His body stayed infuriatingly reticent while the panic mounted and mounted like a frightened beast.  He was absolutely certain he was about to watch this teenaged girl paint the cement with her own fucking brains.  Apparently, Takeba thought so too, because she gasped over and over as she held the gun to her head, her finger quivering against the trigger.  
  
    Her hesitation cost her, though.  The Shadow slammed forward, knocking her clear off her feet as she cried out in what was either pain or shock -- or both.  She was hit with such force that the gun skittered out of her hands and slid across the pavement until it whirled to a neat little stop right before his feet.  The one time Abel wanted to stay frozen, he did not.  
  
    He felt his knees bend thoroughly against his will.  _No, no, no.  Stop_.  But his body was entirely out of his control.  He felt like his skull was going to explode with the weight of his panic as he watched this hand that wasn't his own close around the gun's handle.  Abel fucking hated it.  It felt like being a puppet dangling on strings, his limbs moving to the beat of someone else's will.  He stared at the gun in his hands before she moved them, and he understood, then, what was happening.  
  
    One of her hands slid to her chest to cover her fluttering heart.  Abel could feel her heart beating against his ribs even as he felt his own.  Her other hand lifted the gun, holding the muzzle to her temple.  
  
     _No, no, **no**_ , he begged.  Minako did not listen.  She pulled the trigger with determination chasing away the icy fear, and Abel was sure they were going to die.  He felt the way his brain pulsed as if he'd been electrocuted.  It surged through each of his limbs, thrumming inside his fingertips and threatening to split each of his nails in two.  For a brief moment, he was afraid he'd open his eyes to see Naoya watching him with his piercing red eyes, eagerly anticipating the demonic chorus he so lovingly described.  
  
    But when he opened them, Naoya was not there.  Abel collapsed backwards onto the glowing lava rock beneath him, only one heartbeat throbbing inside his chest.  He lifted his head with a stunned jerk to see the statue standing there again.  
  
    "Master!!"  Pixie slammed into the back of his head, her tiny fists tugging at his hair.  "Why don't you ever listen to me?!!"  
  
    Abel remained deathly silent.  He stared at the statue for what felt like an eternity, moving only to cradle Pixie in his arms while she clutched at his collar.  He could sort of make out that she was indeed berating him.  And oh, did he deserve it.  But he couldn't catch much of what she said when all he could hear was the rush of blood in his ears and a soft voice whispering in his head.  
  
_Per_  
  
_so_  
  
_na._  
  
    He heard the deafening roar of a gunshot again before he blacked out.


	8. Chapter 8

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter was beta read by quietlynaoya, who was a tremendous help in getting this chapter finished and polished. Thank you again, Naoya! ♥

* * *

 

 

    Abel's head was positively throbbing.  He cradled his skull with fingers the color of paper, the smooth edges of his nails digging into his skin.  It probably wasn't helping his discomfort any, but Abel was not in the mood to care.  He was too busy fuming.  
  
    He could not fucking believe he had fainted.  _Fainted_!!  He could go without sleeping or eating for two years, but god forbid he witness some dream of a memory of a nightmare without coming down with the fucking vapors.  Abel dropped his hands and fumed yet more as his brain pounded against the fragile shell of his skull with every pulse of his heart.  God, did he ever hate himself.  
  
    What even was that?  Had he really just witnessed one of someone's memories?  That girl... Abel peeked up from beneath his heavy palms to look at her.  The statue was perfectly unmoved.  After what he'd just seen, her gentle and utterly placid expression pissed him off to no end.  She had really shot herself in the head.  But...  
  
    He was startled out of his whirling mess of thoughts by the soothing feeling of magic coursing over his hair and chasing away his excruciating headache.  Abel tilted his head to see Pixie fluttering down onto his shoulder and stroking at his scalp with her tiny hands.  
  
    Abel sighed deeply.  "Thank you."  
  
    "You're welcome, Master."  
  
    "Abel."  
  
    Pixie poked her tongue out at him and refused to dignify him with any other response.  He was pretty certain she felt that calling him with a respectful title all of the time granted her carte blanche to be a disrespectful asshole to him in every other arena.  Really, he couldn't fault her for that.  She was a demon, after all.  He managed a lopsided grin for her benefit and reached up to muss fondly at her hair once again.  
  
    "I'm sorry I didn't listen to you."  He really did feel like the world's biggest piece of shit.  It would have been fine if he'd gotten himself lost, but he'd had to go and drag her into it too.  Fortunately for him, though, Pixie didn't seem to mind, and she patted sympathetically at his head.  
  
    "What happened?"  
  
    Right.  Abel actually hadn't told her.  He frowned a bit as he looked away from her, his gaze drifting right back towards the statue.  The Messiah.  It was driving him fucking mental.  Who was she?  Why was she here instead of the guy from before?  Furthermore, what were those fucking things in her memories?  Shadows?  And he'd heard her say Persona.  It was all a tad too Jungian for him, and he shook his head in irritation and turned his attention back to Pixie.  "Have you ever heard of a 'Persona'?"  
  
    Pixie shook her head.  Abel had more or less expected that.  "Neither have I.  Er, hadn't," he muttered, and he squinted back at the statue.  "I think...I was in her head.  I was in a...memory."  Deeply intrigued, Pixie leaned closer to him with her eyes open wide and her fingers pressed to his cheeks.  
  
    "In her head?  I didn't know you could do that!"  
  
    "Yeah, well, neither did I," Abel admitted.  As interesting as it was, he wasn't entirely sure he wanted a repeat performance, especially if she was going to try and shoot herself in the fucking head again.  "While I was there, I heard this other girl mention 'summoning' hers.  I thought they were talking about demons, but then she pulled out a god damned gun."  
  
    "A gun?"  Pixie cocked her head, still visibly perplexed.  Abel could feel his brow pinch as he realized he was going to have to explain it to her.  Before he could get into it, however, Pixie shifted on his shoulder.  "What is a gu-"  
  
    With a soft crack, Pixie vanished into thin air.  
  
    Abel blinked like an idiot.  "...Pixie?"  He whirled around, the corners of his cape biting at the air.  She was nowhere to be found.  Abel was completely and utterly taken aback.  He had never seen her just disappear before.  Demons couldn't teleport...well, not without Phantasm, anyway, and it's not like she'd learned a new trick or _oh god someone had fucking summoned his Pixie_.  Abel's eyes opened so wide it actually hurt.  Every single rational thought drained out of his head, and Abel very quickly replaced every one of them with enough blinding, white hot rage to fuel an entire galaxy worth of suns.  
  
    Some stupid, unfortunate moron just fucking **summoned his Pixie**.  The statue was forgotten entirely.  The familiar red hellscape cracked around him as Abel's magic lashed at its boundaries hard enough to shatter them, and Abel exploded into being in the middle of Tokyo with his magic writhing around him and roaring like an inferno.  His eyes blazed.  The wind itself was at his mercy, swirling around him and tugging viciously at his hair and cape.  He was so enraged that a nearby fountain boiled over and hissed at the air.  Someone had the _audacity_ to take away the last friend he had in this world.  Tragically for them...there weren't enough pounds of flesh in the world to satisfy the furious King of Bel.  
  
    His dark and unrighteous wrath fizzled out in about three seconds when he realized that there was absolutely no one there to take it out on.  Whichever little plaza he'd crash landed into, it was completely and utterly empty.  Abel's features schooled into a look of sour displeasure at the realization that not a soul had witnessed what was no doubt an awe inspiring and probably blood curdling sight before hell rained down upon the earth.  
  
    "What a waste."  Abel sniffed and touched down onto the ground to begin looking for Pixie, but he only had to go a few feet to at least get some idea of what'd happened.  
  
    Whoever had the misfortune to summon her was now a bright red smear across the pavement.  He probably should have guessed that Pixie would be more than capable of holding her own.  He just didn't expect her to deal out such a violent comeuppance.  "Gross," he announced to no one in particular, and he curled his lip at the damage.  
  
    It was then that Abel noticed just how _much_ damage there really was.  Much more than even Pixie could have been responsible for.  He'd been so angry he hadn't truly absorbed it, but now that he took stock, he felt torn between being impressed and slightly dizzy with horror.  Slowly, Abel sailed up into their air and gazed across the city.  Outside of a limited area...Tokyo was completely devastated.  He could see smoke billowing over the horizon as indiscriminate fires devoured collapsed buildings and enormous swathes of land alike.  It made him uncomfortable to admit, but Abel could hardly deny it.  The destruction made the Tokyo lockdown he suffered seem like child's play in comparison.  What the hell had happened?  
  
    He dropped back down with a deep frown tugging at the corners of his lips.  Whatever happened, it obviously had something to do with demons.  Had he inadvertently stumbled upon _this_ universe's version of his lockdown?  But if that was the case, why was it so much worse?  
  
    And now he didn't even have Pixie to nag with his incessant questions.  The reminder made his stomach sink.  While it was the slightest bit comforting to know that she wasn't contracted to some loser who wouldn't take care of her properly, Abel still did not care for the idea of her wandering around by herself in this unfamiliar disaster zone.  
  
    He stepped forward to begin the search when his attention was arrested by something thundering down from the sky.  Abel looked up to see an almost cartoonishly bright cone-shaped creature slicing through the air.  Even from where he was standing, he felt it the second it made impact.  The ground rumbled beneath his feet and shook the nearby buildings.  Was that a fucking ice cream cone?  Honestly, this disaster only got more absurd by the minute.  Earthquakes, fires, and now renegade alien ice cream cones.  Abel snorted to himself before he set off in the direction he'd seen it land, as curious as he was totally puzzled.  
  
    It took less than two minutes for him to begin hearing terrified screams in the distance.  He also heard something a lot less human -- a sort of screeching drone that filled the air like a siren filtered through pure, distilled malevolence.  He stopped when he heard the thing actually explode, rocking the buildings around him again and shattering several windows.  Christ, whatever this was, it was a lot more pissed off than the self-righteous angels of his time ever had been.  
  
    He heard more boyish screams and those same droning whines that made his ears ring even through his headphones.  Abel took off running, then, and his magic thrummed in the air behind him, as eager for sweet, sweet catharsis as Abel was.  
  
    When he got there, the creature was still spinning wildly.  Sure enough, it looked exactly like an alien ice cream cone.  The bulbous top part of it -- the part Abel guessed was responsible for the human shaped piles of ash surrounding its body -- pulsed where it hovered over the multi-colored cone.  Abel took in a deep breath as his magic purred.  Both his hands shot straight up into the air.  Abel fancied he could feel the sky split around the ice he summoned forth.  It felt so very nice to feel like himself again, oh so comfortable in his own tremendous power.  
  
    He brought his hands down, and a veritable behemoth of ice slammed into the creature.  
  
    For a long moment, Abel stared at it entirely nonplussed.  "What," he spat.  The bizarre creature looked as unfazed as a creature could when it lacked a face.  It made that irritating droning noise again before Abel snapped.  He may not have been able to kill it, but he was determined to at least make the useless little cretin suffer.  He spent several minutes throwing it into walls before it finally exploded again, and he left its body in a dazed sort of state before he stormed off.  
  
    Fuck this lockdown and fuck the people in it, fuck spooky doors and fuck time and fuck everything- he was still cursing the entire universe when he felt a body slam into his chest and collapse onto the ground.  Abel stayed right where he was, thanks very much, but the other kid wasn't quite as lucky.  He looked down at the heap of blue and white and mussed black hair as he cocked his head.  It sounded like the poor kid had the wind knocked out of him.  He was still trying to catch his breath when Abel reached down to offer his hand.  
  
    The boy looked up and met Abel's hellish gaze with the brightest blue eyes he'd ever seen in his life.  
  
    "S- Sorry!" he blurted.  He hesitated before he took Abel's hand and hoisted himself up to his feet.  "Are you alright?"  
  
    "Peachy, thanks."  God, it felt weird to talk to an actual person.  It had been two years.  Or at least, it was two years to Abel, who elected not to count the mortifying non-conversation he'd had with that sweet, oblivious Atsuro who belonged to some other, equally oblivious Kazuya in some universe where he hadn't forgotten how to treat his friends.  Abel realized he was staring at the kid a little too intensely and blinked at him.  
  
    "I'm Hibiki.  Sorry about before."  
  
    Abel just shook his head as he stared at him.  Hibiki?  What a weird name.  In addition to having a weird name and pretty eyes, Hibiki looked strangely calm for having been running at breakneck speeds earlier.  It made Abel squint at him.  
  
    "So...are you a magician?"  Abel's red eyes snapped up to Hibiki's face.  This little fucker was actually grinning at him with a thoroughly impish look to him; it made his own face pinch before Abel craned his neck and lifted his eyebrow.  
  
    "I might be," he agreed.  He spun on his heel and reached for Hibiki's dumb hood to tug on the long ears.  "Really?  You're going to diss my awesome cape when you wear this shit?  How about you watch your mouth, or my next trick will be pushing you _into_ a hat."  
  
    Despite Abel's thoroughly un-neighborly little threat, Hibiki actually laughed at him.  It might have irritated him, but really, it didn't sound particularly malicious at all, and if Abel were the one being threatened by some jackass in a cosplay-tier cape and a pair of cat ear shaped headphones, he might be inclined to laugh at him too.  Mostly, though, Hibiki sounded almost relieved, as if laughing was what he had needed most just then.  Abel found himself actually smiling back at him.  Maybe this kid wasn't so bad.  
  
    "So, are you going to tell me your name, Mr. Magician?" he asked, his blue eyes glittering.  Seriously, it ought to have been illegal to have eyes that clear and bright.  
  
    With a faint smirk, Abel held his hand out to shake Hibiki's own.  "My apologies.  You'll have to forgive me.  When you spend your time exclusively with demons, social graces are the first things to go, I'm afraid."  
  
    That was enough to give even Hibiki pause, apparently.  "Demons?" he repeated.  "Maybe you can tell me what's going on?"  
  
    Hmm.  Abel was awfully interested to hear that.  Maybe this entire mess was a recent development, then.  "I'm afraid not, little rabbit.  I was hoping you could do that for me, actually."  
  
    "Oh."  Hibiki's sunny face fell a bit, but he clearly wasn't the type to let much of anything get him down for too long.  "I can't tell you much.  My best friend signed me up for this weird website today... Nicaea?"  Hibiki was already drawing his phone out of his pocket to open it, as if he needed some sort of reminder that today had actually happened.  "We all got this crazy video of our deaths, but these demons came out of our phones and prevented it somehow.  Er, but then they attacked us, so it wasn't exactly a Christmas miracle or anything."  
  
    "Your phones?"  Abel couldn't help it.  He thrust his hand out immediately.  Hibiki looked a little puzzled, and he stared at Abel's open hand.  
  
    "Wh- you want my phone?"  
  
    Abel didn't even ask.  He snatched the phone out of Hibiki's hand to sift through the demon summoning app.  He couldn't believe they actually used phones.  He devoured the menu with endless curiosity.  It looked almost entirely the same as the program Naoya set up on their COMPs.  He glanced through the demons Hibiki had on his phone and was awfully amused to see how low level they were.  This kid was adorably green, but Abel had a feeling he wouldn't remain that way for long.  
  
    Kids these days and their fancy phone apps.  They had no idea what it was like to struggle to shove a thick, cumbersome COMP into skin-tight pant pockets.  
  
    "Wh- Hey!  Give it back!" Hibiki snapped.  
  
    Abel handed his phone back to him and grinned.  "Fascinating.  Relax, little rabbit.  I'm a charitable sort, I promise."  
  
    Hibiki made a face at him as he pocketed his phone a bit defensively.  Not that Abel blamed him, of course.  He did have weird strangers in capes manhandling him and his only means of defense.  "You still haven't given me your name, y'know."  
  
    Abel fell still.  He spotted movement from the corner of his eye and looked back to see a girl running towards them.  He looked back at Hibiki and flashed him a wink.  "Just call me Abel.  Good luck, kid.  Sorry about the phone.  I promise I'll have better manners next time."  
  
    "Hibiki!"  Abel wasn't especially surprised to find that she was one of Hibiki's friends.  She was getting closer when Abel decided he'd probably bothered Hibiki enough.  He turned back to the boy and shoved his hands into his pockets.  
  
    "By the way.  If I were you, I'd avoid any Pixies in the near future.  Later, Hibiki."  
  
    "Huh?"  Hibiki looked adorably baffled, but Abel had already lifted his hand and snapped his fingers.  He disappeared with a crack.  Abel wasn't going to find a magical solution to his problems any time soon.  While he was stuck here, he may as well sit back and watch the fireworks.  It was a nice change not to be directly in the line of fire for once.


	9. Chapter 9

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter was beta read by quietlynaoya. Thanks again, Naoya! I'd be lost without you!

* * *

 

 

    In spite of the chaos, it only took Abel a few short minutes to figure out where Pixie was.  After leaving Hibiki to his friend, all Abel had to do was follow the sound of distant screams to find a parade of terrified gangsters fleeing east.  Naturally, he headed west, and he was absolutely delighted to find his missing companion wreaking unholy havoc.  
  
    "You!!  You stupid ruffians!  How dare you think yourselves worthy of me!" she screeched, both her skinny arms thrust up into the air as she prepared to cast another Megidolaon.  Abel was tempted to sit back and let her continue, because, as the pitiful gangsters would soon attest, his darling Pixie had Victory Cry.  She could keep going without his help for a long, long time.  Then again, some clueless SDF innocent was probably going to wander straight into her explosive path any moment now, so Abel sighed and stepped in between her and the last trembling sad sack still crying on the pavement.  
  
    "Master!"  She dropped her arms and rushed at him, attaching herself to his neck.  
  
    "Jesus, you really did some damage.  You okay?"  
  
    Affronted, Pixie reached up and yanked at his hair.  "As if these pathetic meatbags could hurt me!  I'm _fine_."  Abel chuckled sweetly and pulled her away from the carnage.  The guy on the ground looked momentarily stunned before he scrambled away.  Abel could still hear him sniffling before he disappeared.  
  
    "Alright, alright.  You're fine.  Forgive me.  You sure did a number on those guys."  
  
    Pixie harrumphed and climbed onto his shoulder to pout.  "They were stupid.  I told them to go away before you came and destroyed them all, but they did not listen.  So I killed them."  
  
    "Yeah, that seems reasonable."  
  
    Abel was rewarded by Pixie punching him in the head, but she was so small she only managed to hit his eyebrow.  She packed a surprising amount of force, though; it actually stung quite a bit.  "Ow!  What the fuck.  Did you just punch me in the eyebrow?"  
  
    "Don't mock me!  Those men were cowards.  They wanted me to hurt a bunch of weak non-tamers.  As if that's all I'm good for!"  She was good at pretending like it was simply because she had better things to do than throttle boring, unarmed civilians, but Abel knew better.  She'd been his partner for a long time, and she knew well that Abel had never liked resorting to such...permanent violence when a lighter hand would suffice.  Despite the fact that she'd punched him in the eyebrow about thirty seconds ago, Abel felt awfully touched.  
  
    "Alright.  I'm sorry for mocking you.  I really was worried about you, though."  It certainly appeased her.  Pixie leaned close to him, resting against his head and clinging to his hair.  Abel was incredibly relieved to have her back.  She was all he had left, and the idea of losing her was enough to put him dangerously close to destroying about six city blocks.  
  
    "Have you found anything out about what's going on here?" he asked suddenly, craning his neck to survey the ruined city.  "I talked to some kid in a rabbit hoodie, but he didn't know either.  It seems like this is all a pretty recent affair."  Pixie only shook her head and clutched at the fold of his collar.  
  
    "It's like the time I met you.  An ordeal for humanity.  But this is...different."  Pixie's face scrunched a bit.  Abel tried to coax _how_ it was different out of her for a few minutes, but she couldn't describe it any better than Abel could describe the feeling of whatever malevolent super-monster the Messiah was keeping at bay.  Abel decided it probably wasn't much use dwelling on it.  They'd figure it out eventually.  
  
    "We'll just have to hoof it, then."  He was entirely too intrigued to let it go now.  As cavalier as it seemed, he was enjoying the novelty of being part of a lockdown where he wasn't in immediate danger.  In fact, he was really only there as a passive audience -- the only time Abel had to directly participate was when he felt like it.  It was strangely exciting to see how things would unfold when he didn't have to fear for his own safety.  
  
    Less exciting was seeing his hometown almost completely leveled.  The further he walked throughout the remains of his city, the more and more he felt his stomach twisting itself over sharp tines of mourning.  Throughout his tragic foray through the labyrinth doors, he'd seen a lot of versions of Tokyo.  Not one of them was a broken, smoldering ruin like this.  He could see windows smashed and abandoned cars clogging the streets.  There were already vending machines crumpled on the ground with their insides emptied out.  Even the 901 building looked like a block tower pushed over by a toddler, and there were a staggering number of demons already swarming the ground.  
  
    Christ, what a mess.  Pixie seemed to agree with his assessment, because she was uncharacteristically silent there on his shoulder.  She did, however, have a supremely disgusted expression tugging her sharp features together.  The contempt she held for these lesser demons skulking around was practically rolling off her body.  Truth be told, it was a little perplexing for Abel.  He'd never seen her react that way towards lower leveled demons in their own timeline -- unless, of course, they were attacking him.  But all these particular demons had done to earn her ire was exist.  
  
    "Seriously, Pixie.  Are you okay?"  
  
    She wrinkled her nose and draped herself across the top of his head, nearly knocking off his headphones.  "I don't like them," she muttered.  "These demons.  I don't-"  She was interrupted by a piercing scream that sent Pixie tumbling off his head in shock.  Abel would have caught her, but she zipped straight into the air before he could and huffed her agitation.  
  
    The scream sounded awfully close by.  The last ones he'd heard had brought him face to face with that infuriating pink creature.  It might very well have cornered more civilians, or even the strange rabbit-eared boy Abel had taken a shine towards.  "Well, come on, then," Abel bid.  His lips pulled into a sharp little grin, and he headed for the direction of the scream, leaving a grumpy Pixie to follow behind him.  
  
    He stepped into a cramped alley just as he spotted them: a small horde of demons stood between him and a panicked mother, a smaller body clutched tightly to her chest.  Abel bit at his lip.  That was a little too much even for him.  Had it been another one of those pathetic thugs with their stupid bleached pompadours, he might have just left the demons to it.  
  
    "Hey," he called.  In an instant, each demon swung around, and the woman looked up with stark fear still white across her face.  Abel curled his fingers into his palm and jabbed his thumb over his shoulder.  "Get the fuck out of here.  Go pick on someone who's an actual threat to you."  
  
    The demon closest to him was a Kobold.  Of course it was.  This had to have been some day one bullshit.  There was a Pixie hovering near its shoulder, too, and Abel had to ignore how unsettling it was to see a Pixie who wasn't his own.  It always made him feel supremely weird.  The Pixie had to make it worse, too, when she sneered at him, and her dumb canine companion bared its fangs like Abel should be impressed or something.  "Why would we do that?!" she called.  
  
    Blankly, Abel stared at her.  Were they serious?  "Because I said so," he snarled.  His anger was beginning to spark again, the wind picking up behind him and fluttering the edges of his cape as his magic sat up and took notice.  These little fuckers!  
  
    "Master..."  He felt Pixie reach for his ear and tug at it gently, but Abel held up a hand to silence her.  He was fairly sure he knew what she was going to say.  He simply wanted his suspicions confirmed point blank.  The demons were kind enough to oblige him, but they had to really twist the knife with a chorus of raucous laughter first.  Demon laughter always sounded like forks across a white board, and it somehow managed to be worse than Dubhe's irritating whine.  
  
    "No!"  That shrill voice indicated it was the other Pixie in the mob, but Abel was so pissed he couldn't see straight to really pick her out of the crowd.  
  
    "And who are _you_?" another piped up.  A stupid little Kabuso.  Probably.  
  
    Abel's eyes narrowed into dangerous slits.  His magic gave a hard pulse around him and began to vibrate subtly.  He imagined he still had a bit of pent up aggression from his run in with Dubhe that was begging for release.  "I'm sorry."  Abel cocked his head and jammed a pinkie into his ear as he made a big show of clearing it out.  "I must be mistaken.  Did you just tell me _no_?"  Abel's lips peeled back into a cold sneer, and he bared his teeth right back at the hulking dog monster.  "Who am _I_?  I'm the King of Bel.  Who the fuck are _you_?"  
  
    He let go of his raging whorls of magic all at once.  The concrete split beneath the group, throwing several off their feet with a cacophony of shocked cries.  Before they even had time to right themselves again, hellfire spit from beneath the earth and swallowed every single body in its hungry jaws.  In less than a minute, the entire alley was smeared a dull grey with scattered ash and blackened bones.  Abel tilted his head back to crack his neck, and his magic soared down beneath him to purr like a contented cat.  
  
    Across the way, the poor woman was frozen in shock.  "Oh," Abel said.  "Er, sorry, miss.  I admit that one got a little bit away from me."  He stepped across the cracked slabs of pavement and extended a hand towards her, but he hesitated as he realized that the last thing she'd probably want to do was touch him or spend another few seconds in his presence.  Which was fair.  "You should probably head to a shelter or something."  
  
    She couldn't manage even half a coherent syllable.  She trembled there against the brick with her arms wound tight around her daughter, her skin so pale it was nearly blue and her eyes threaded brightly with red.  "Th- thank..."  
  
    Abel nodded swiftly.  "It's okay."  She ducked her head back at him and ran away as fast as she could, nearly catching a heel on the upended slabs of pavement.  In her wake, Abel folded his arms and scowled.  "So, that went well."  He tilted his head to make eye contact with Pixie, who sighed back at him.  
  
    "These demons aren't ours, Master.  You're _our_ King of Bel."  These demons here wouldn't recognize him in such a capacity.  Of course they wouldn't.  He'd figured as much before he roasted them all.  It irritated him a little, but it was hardly the end of the world.  They might not be verbally bound to obey his wishes, but, as he had just demonstrated, he could still annihilate the little bastards with extreme prejudice.  It made him feel marginally better.  
  
    "At least I could kill them," he ground out, his voice dark and grinding against his throat like glass.  "I ran into this stupid looking ice cream monster I couldn't damage."  
  
    "What?"  Pixie's eyes popped open wide.  "Did you look at it with your app?"  
  
    Abel fell still.  He also fell completely silent as Pixie stared at him with her tiny, judgmental eyes.  No, no he hadn't.  Partly because he didn't know how, but mostly because the thought hadn't even occurred to him.  Slowly, feeling stupid, Abel slid his hands into his pockets, even though he already knew full well that his COMP wasn't there.  Pixie stared at him with her cheeks puffed around an unamused frown.  
  
    "It's in your cape, Master."  
  
    "My what?!"  
  
    The silence was so thick around them that Abel swore he could hear a can rolling across the empty street from a mile away.  Pixie pursed her lips tightly.  
  
    "Don't you remember?!  You said, 'God, I hate these stupid pockets!' and then you hid it in your cape right after we arrived back home."  
  
    No, Abel did not remember that.  He stared at her like a total moron before he finally looked down, and he grasped at the edges of his cape.  "Are you suggesting that I have some sort of pocket dimension in my cape?"  Pixie sighed at him as loudly as she possibly could.  She flung his cape straight out of his hands and dove in, disappearing entirely.  
  
    After a minute or two, she popped back into existence and fluttered out from beneath the cape with his blue COMP clutched in her arms.  The poor thing was almost the same size, so she had to struggle with it a bit before she was able to thrust it into Abel's hands.  "You need to dust in there," she told him.  
  
    Abel ignored her and sat down, gripping at his COMP almost feverishly.  Jesus, he hadn't touched it in such a long time.  It actually felt kind of cold, too, which was a little off-putting. Apparently this mysterious pocket dimension he'd been entirely unaware of also functioned as a fucking refrigerator.  Abel dragged his fingertips across the smooth, chilly surface of it.  He was dubious that it would even turn on after this long, but as hesitant as he was, Abel was aware there was only one thing he could do to find out.  
  
    He cracked it open with his heart edging higher and higher up into his throat.  To his infinite surprise, it actually booted up, and he watched the screen load until all of his old icons sprung to life.  The app was still there and intact, which struck him as kind of odd.  He had expected Naoya to disable it or something after the trial ended.  
  
    With his legs crossed and his back bowed, Abel looked through the assortment of demons he still had left to his name.  His list of human allies was notably empty, which was to be expected.  The sides of his throat felt so solid he couldn't even manage to swallow.  Savagely, Abel shoved away his own aching desire for self-pity and tightened his jaw.  
  
    He shut the app down and moved to turn it off, but before he did, he noticed that he had unread e-mails...a lot of them.  For a split second, Abel was so stunned he was incapable of rational thought, or he might have resisted the impulse.  He opened his e-mail and scrolled through the list.  There was one from Yuzu near the very bottom that he ignored.  One from Kaido.  A few from Mari.  There was one from Naoya that made his insides shrivel; Abel deleted it without even opening it.  
  
    Once he reached the top, there was nothing he could do to hold back the despair that crawled up along his spine and chewed his insides.  The rest were all from Atsuro, and the most recent one had been sent just six months ago.  
  
    Abel didn't want to, but he opened it anyway.  
  
     _I miss you._  
  
    That's all it said.  Short and sweet.  Abel's eyes blurred with tears so thick he couldn't see.  His fingers bit into the sides of his COMP so hard it was a wonder it didn't shatter with the pressure.  "Atsuro..."  
  
    He slammed the COMP shut and ducked his head.  Six months ago.  Gods, Atsuro was still thinking about him.  He'd e-mailed him over the course of a year and a half.  The knot in his throat was so big that Abel was sure he was going to choke, and he reached up with shaking hands.  He couldn't stop them.  The tears burned at his eyes and sluiced down his face to drip across the ground.  
  
    A small weight sank down over his knee.  Before he could lift his head, he felt Pixie's hands wiping at his tears.  She didn't say a word.  Abel appreciated that, because he wasn't sure he could bring himself to string together a coherent sentence.  
  
    He cried for only a few minutes.  But they were enough.  He tilted his head back and closed his stinging eyes.  Crying was the fucking worst.  It always hurt and made him tired.  It didn't even make him feel better.  
  
    He opened his eyes again and stared at the sky.  It was definitely beginning to grow orange now, streaked with darker pink clouds that indicated the sun would be sinking very quickly.  Abel took a deep breath and looked back down at his COMP.  
  
    "Master," Pixie murmured.  She crossed her little legs where she sat on his knee.  "Are we really going to stay here?"  Her sentenced ended there, but Abel could hear the rest of it as clearly as if she'd actually said it.  They didn't belong here.  They both needed to be home.  
  
    Abel sighed and tilted his head further back until his crown nestled against the wall behind him.  He could feel his hair catching uncomfortably against the brick, but he didn't care enough to move.  Were they really going to stay here?  It was a fair question.  They had no reason to be here, and Abel could go back through the labyrinth any time.  
  
    But...  
  
    He tilted his head to look at Pixie before he dropped his eyes to his COMP.  He wasn't ready to leave just yet.  If he could adequately judge this ordeal by his own, it would likely only last a week.  In the grand scheme of things, it would make no difference to him.  He really did want to know what was happening here, and, more selfishly...he wanted to know what it was like to be in a lockdown from the other side.  
  
    Abel reached up and let his fingers pass over Pixie's hair.  "Just for a bit.  Then we'll look for a way home.  I promise."  
  
    She seemed okay with that decision.  Abel smiled at her faintly and closed his hand over his COMP.  If he was going to stay, he wasn't going to be able to use this old app anymore.  He had no doubt it wouldn't be able to recognize these weird space monsters.  He looked over the smooth blue plastic for a long time as he stroked at it.  Honestly, it hurt to look at it and see something so obsolete.  This had been his lifeblood.  His only means of salvation for an entire week.  He remembered desperately hand cranking it with a dynamo and poring over his e-mails each night before he slept.  
  
    Slowly, Abel reached for his cape and slid the COMP into it.  It disappeared into the strange void he hadn't even known he'd had, safely tucked away.  Abel stood, then, and he turned to face his companion.  
  
    "Well, then," he told her, and he forced a sharp little smile that belied the red of his eyes.  "It looks like I'm in the market for a new phone."


	10. Chapter 10

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter was beta read by quietlynaoya. Thanks again, Naoya. ♥
> 
> I apologize for the delay in this particular chapter coming out! My school workload has grown a lot since I started this project, so this may become the norm. If anyone is interested in the status of this work, I'll be posting updates on my Tumblr, habenaria-radiata. They'll be tagged "night daze updates".
> 
> Thank you so much for reading.

* * *

 

 

    Finding a decent cell phone was harder than Abel had anticipated.  Glass crunched beneath the soles of his shoes as he stepped across the store, pawing at different models and peering over them with a critical eye.  Pixie held one up that flipped sideways, and it startled her so badly she dropped it on the floor.  She hesitated before she grabbed a similar one and presented it to him.  
  
    "What about this one?  I like it.  It looks funny."  
  
    Abel shook his head.  "That's what Hibiki's looks like."  He wasn't about cribbing someone else's style when he had his own, thanks very much.  He just had to find one that suited him.  Which, granted, was a little difficult when so many of them looked the same: kind of boring.  
  
    Eventually, he did find one that caught his eye.  Abel flipped it open and turned it on, and he was delighted to find that the buttons lit up with red backlights.  It was perfect.  "What do you think?" he asked, flashing it towards Pixie.  "...Do you think it's _too_ obvious?"  
  
    Her sharp features pulled into an expression that spoke volumes on what she thought about _that_ , so Abel simply scowled back at her and fiddled with it some more.  "Ah.  Shit."  He was going to have to activate it.  And, given that the city was so fucked up, he highly doubted that working wifi was going to be in any kind of abundance.  
  
    Pixie huffed at him and threw her arms up.  "Why don't you just take a phone from the street?!  They already have the app, and the tamers are dead!  Just take one!"  
  
    Abel curled his lip.  "Are you serious?  You want me to use some piece of shit phone covered in someone else's fingerprints?  And do you know how disgusting other people's mouths are?"  
  
    Like hell the King of Bel was going to use some plebe's discarded shit after they were dead.  Fuck that.  
  
    He left his extremely cranky darling there at the phone store for a quick jaunt back to his hell, and he stepped through a nearby labyrinth door to find himself a phone store.  All it took was a few extremely persuasive threats and some shattered windows, and Abel had himself a brand new, functioning cell phone.  He stepped back into hell and appeared back beside Pixie with a thundering crack.  
  
    "Told you," he announced, waggling his new phone at her.  Pixie grumbled at him and clutched at his shoulder like a moody kitten.  
  
    "It works now?"  
  
    "Well...the phone does."  Abel threw his cape behind him, and a powerful gust of wind swept the glass and debris from the floor.  He plopped down and bent over his phone to open it.  He imagined Nicaea would be easy enough to track down -- the only problem was that he still didn't have wifi access.  He had no way to get to Nicaea in a universe in which such a site never existed.  
  
    Abel ground his teeth in irritation.  It took Pixie prying his fingers away to keep him from pulverizing the new phone in his grip.  "Fuck!" he snarled.  He did not just go through all that effort for a fucking phone that wouldn't work.  
  
    The longer he sat there, the angrier he got.  Why did _everything_ in this lockdown have to be so god damned inconvenient?  He was here from the opposite side.  He should be the one with infinite resources and ridiculous magical powers.  Things should be... _easier_.  But of course, nothing was, and it so fucking irritating he couldn't stand it.  After several minutes of stewing in his rage, Abel's fingers curled like claws around this stupid fucking phone, and a snarl tore from his throat.  "WORK, YOU PIECE OF SHIT!"  
  
    His magic surged upwards so hard the ceiling cracked, and the last vestiges of the broken windows were ground to a glittery dust.  As he felt it sink back down to flow comfortably around his body, Abel blinked, utterly disoriented.  The little bars at the top of his screen were full.  Suspiciously, he opened a browser to search for Nicaea.  The site loaded without incident.  
  
    Abel sat there with a dumb, befuddled expression on his face for what felt like an hour.  "W- Well...there," he muttered finally, and he typed his information into Nicaea with sulky little jabs of his finger.  He had no idea what he just did to make this stupid thing work, but he wasn't going to question it.  
  
    Pixie, however, was thoroughly charmed.  "Ahhh, you did it, Master!  You're amazing!"  
  
    Abel didn't feel amazing.  He felt like an idiot, really, but Pixie was always fascinated when his abilities came out like that.  _She_ would have appreciated his enraged fit earlier if she'd been around to see it.  
  
    Oh well.  He shut the browser down and was relieved to see the demon summoning app's icon sitting on his screen.  It looked identical to Hibiki's, which seemed like a good sign.  He opened it, curious, but he wasn't especially shocked to see that it was more or less empty.  They probably intended to roll the features out slowly.  It wasn't like he needed them, so it wasn't that much of an inconvenience.  
  
    "Alright.  Looks like we're in business."  He flipped the phone shut and slid it into his pocket.  It fit a lot more comfortably than his COMP did, but all that reminder served to do was depress him a little.  "Ugh.  Let's just get out of here."  
  
    He stepped through the now empty window frame and out onto the sidewalk when he was stopped in his tracks by a familiar and deeply grating droning sound.  Fantastic.  The ice cream beast was back.  "Ugghh.  Couldn't wait, could you," Abel bit out.  At least it had the courtesy to wait until he had his phone.  Still, Abel swore in annoyance, and he started in its direction with Pixie racing after him.  "Can you hear that?  Come on, I want a look at it."  
  
    "Look at what?!" Pixie called behind him.  "What is it?"  
  
    Abel didn't answer.  Neither of them could see Dubhe yet, but Abel knew it couldn't be far off.  His footsteps echoed across the empty expanse of buildings as he closed the distance between himself and Dubhe.  It occurred to him that it'd probably be easier to find some kind of vantage point.  Luckily, there wasn't exactly a shortage of buildings around.  Abel found one that seemed to be a good height and braced himself up against one of its walls.  He skittered up the length of it and swung himself up over the metal railing that lined each of its edges.  
  
    As he'd hoped, it gave him a perfect view of everything happening down below.  He leaned over the metal railings to get a good look around when he spotted them.  Abel's eyebrows shot up.  "Would you look who it is?"  
  
    Pixie landed on his back panting a bit, her wings folded up against her back and her hair a rumpled mess.  "Slow _down_.  Who are those people?  Do you know them?"  
  
    There on the ground beneath them were Hibiki, the girl who had spotted them earlier, and a taller guy Abel hadn't seen before.  And, of course, spinning and groaning atop some sort of cheerily painted delivery truck, was Dubhe.  It spat out more alien sounds that scraped against Abel's eardrums, spinning faster and faster as the pink bulb hovering over it bloated ever larger.  
  
    Hibiki's voice rang through the cool night air.  "Daichi! Floor it!"  Whoever Daichi was, he did exactly that.  Abel could hear him screaming even from where he was, well after Daichi reversed hard enough to send Dubhe crashing to the ground.  
  
    "Oh, Christ."  Abel shook his head and reached for his phone.  To his surprise, the app started up entirely on its own, and Dubhe's image and stats flickered across the screen.  It really did look so fucking stupid, like something a drunk engineering student designed to try and impress a fashion major.  Abel had intended to roll his eyes at it when his gaze was firmly arrested by its resistances instead.  He paused.  
  
    "What the _fuck_?" he spluttered.  
  
    "Just ignore it!"  Abel blinked, jerking away from his screen and leaning further over the metal banister.  Apparently Hibiki was smart enough not to engage Dubhe.  Abel could see him directing his friends to skirt around the ridiculous looking monster, skirmishing only with the weaker demons that spawned around Dubhe to keep them blocked in.  
  
    Seeing them surviving this mess made him feel a little better.  Abel refocused his attention on his phone to see if he'd perhaps been hallucinating.  
  
    He had not been.  Dubhe nullified _everything_.  None of the elements would do a damn thing to it, and it even had the audacity to reflect physical attacks.  Abel glowered at the screen.  What kind of bullshit was that?  Sure, the app didn't list anything about whether or not Almighty spells would affect it, but he'd seen Hibiki's phone.  He didn't have access to anything like that.  Of course he wouldn't.  He wasn't strong enough to summon the kinds of demons that had those capabilities.  
  
    These kids were absolutely fucked.  Nothing they could do would get them out of this.  Hibiki was weird, but damn it, Abel liked him.  He didn't want to see him and his friends reduced to piles of ash due to pure happenstance and the world's most abysmal luck.  Especially not at the hands of this fucking creature in particular.  
  
    "Master, look!"  
  
    Abel did.  Dubhe swelled to the point it seemed only seconds away from bursting.  Its body pulsed and throbbed as Abel watched it in disgust.  There was no more time.  Determined to rescue Hibiki, Abel had one foot on the banister before Pixie grabbed his cape and yanked him back.  
  
    "Rrrrrraaaaaaah!"  
  
    In spite of Pixie's valiant attempts to anchor him, Abel nearly fell over the edge.  The train tracks beneath them rumbled faintly as the delivery truck from before rolled across them.  "Guys! H-Here goes nothing...!"  Abel stood, taken aback entirely, his eyes open wide and disbelieving.  _No fucking way._   Was he serious?  
  
    Oh, he was.  Daichi reversed again before he slammed forward, the squeal of tires on metal slicing through the night air.  Abel watched in total awe as the truck careened over the broken edges of railroad, sailing over them in a neat arc and plummeting straight into Dubhe.  He'd never seen anything like it -- or much of it, since the explosion very nearly blinded him.  Abel's cape whipped up around them, narrowly protecting his and Pixie's faces from a rain of shrapnel.  "Holy shit," he breathed.  
  
    On the ground, however, Daichi's friends were less impressed than Abel was, and far more horrified.  "Daichi!  No!" the girl cried.  
  
    It was like watching a fucking cartoon.  Abel leaned forward yet further, only barely hanging onto the metal with the tips of his fingers and straining to get closer.  Dubhe let out with a pitiful, shuddering whine.  The entire pink part of it was gone entirely, and what was left of the cone was almost shredded.  Abel took the chance to glance down at his phone.  Its resistances had actually changed.  
  
    Abel was more than a little stunned.  He watched in growing glee as Hibiki tore into it with his tiny, greenhorn demons, taking Dubhe down for the sake of his brave, stupid friend.  Distantly, Abel wondered if Atsuro would kamikaze a truck into a monster for him.  Abel suspected that he would, but he wasn't afforded a whole lot of time to imagine how such a scenario might play out when Dubhe was actually dying.  Hibiki landed the final killing blow, and Abel watched the creature disintegrate in a corona of strange black and blue light.  Though no one could hear him, he erupted into a fit of applause and grinned hard enough to split his face.  
  
    "Out-fucking-standing!"  
  
    He found himself tempted to go down there and offer Hibiki a more audible congratulations, but he was interested to see that someone else had the same idea.  A very different sort of welcoming party approached in his place, striding forward like a miniature military brigade.  What looked to be a group of people in painfully bright yellow, helmed by a boy who had to have been younger than him, made their way towards an extremely tired looking Hibiki.  Abel narrowed his eyes.  Definitely military.  Abel was already not much of a fan.  Especially after he'd nearly been shot and microwaved by his own.  
  
    The boy in front said something he couldn't quite make out.  It irritated him that he was too far away to hear, but something about the kid's outlandishly intricate coat and the way everyone else was deferring to him kept Abel firmly out of his sight.  That and the smug look on his face that made Abel think of Naoya.  
  
    "You've changed personnel," the boy commented.  That Abel did hear, and his eyes flickered straight over to Hibiki.  "Did the other young man die?"  
  
    Abel was wondering that too, but he also liked to think he would have asked it in a slightly less abrasive tone.  Then again, Abel did snatch Hibiki's phone out of his hands and threaten him, so he probably would have handled it with exactly as much grace as this weird purple-haired kid.  
  
    "Who is that?"  Pixie plopped down on the metal beside him.  "All of them.  You still haven't said.  You know them?"  
  
    "No.  Just the black-haired kid.  Hibiki.  I like him."  
  
    "Oh."  Pixie seemed mildly surprised, but not enough to question it.  "Who is that other boy?  He's pretty."  Abel found himself taken aback immediately.  What the hell?!  Pixie had never expressed even remote interest in a human before.  That it had to be this one, who made him feel bizarrely self-conscious without even speaking to him, aggravated the hell out of Abel.  
  
    "Are you serious?  That guy?  Come on.  I wouldn't have guessed you'd be into purple hair," Abel groused.  
  
    "Wh- It is not!  It's silver!"  
  
    " _Silver_?  Get the fuck outta here.  That shit is straight up lavender."  
  
    Pixie whirled on him an almost comically stony face.  "Yeah!? Well, you thought your pants were red too!"  
  
    Abel reared back and dropped his gaze to stare at his pants.  "They are red."  
  
    Pixie rolled her eyes in a way that suggested she felt that, throughout all of time, space, and human history, no one in the world was a dumber asshole than Abel was.  She reached for the cord of his headphones -- which was bright red -- and held it in front of his pants.  They were totally hot pink.  
  
    "Huh," Abel mused.  
  
    Their less than civil conversation was soon brought to a screeching halt by the sound of a panicked male voice and a silky sort of laughter.  Abel turned to see Daichi flailing from the edge of the railroad tracks, hanging on for dear life.  "Don't just stand there, Hibiki!  HELP ME!"  
  
    Abel found himself grinning again.  He could not believe it.  Every single one of them had made it out of that debacle just fine.  Daichi exchanged more words with the guy whose hair Abel staunchly believed to be purple, but again, he couldn't actually hear most of it.  Eventually, they got him down from the crumpled railing and safely on the ground.  
  
    Quietly, Abel withdrew.  
  
    "Master?"  Pixie darted after him, her wings buzzing and her lips curled downward.  "Where are you going?"  
  
    Really, Abel didn't know.  It had been a long day, and Hibiki likely needed a break without being hounded.  But he also wasn't terribly eager to follow Hibiki when he was trailing after a tall blue-headed woman who was obviously affiliated with those tacky yellow military types.  That, and he had a splitting headache.  
  
    "I think it's about time we head home for a little bit.  I need a break.  We'll come back tomorrow."  Pixie was not thrilled with that particular news.  Abel didn't care, either.  He absolutely wanted to keep an eye out for Hibiki.  A young, normal kid dropped into a chaotic mashup of supernatural creatures and the more mundane evils of humanity who was solely responsible for the safety and well-being of all his friends?  
  
    Oh, yes.  Abel could relate.  He lingered for only a moment before he and Pixie vanished from Tokyo.  
  
_Stay safe, Hibiki._  
  
_Let's survive._


	11. Chapter 11

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter was once again beta read by quietlynaoya, who was an extremely big help with this one. Thank you so much, Naoya!
> 
> This is likely the last chapter I'll be able to post for a week or two, since I'll be starting my midterms next week. I'll be posting updates on my Tumblr, habenaria-radiata, if anyone is interested. They'll be tagged "night daze updates". As always, thank you so much for reading!

* * *

 

 

    Tucked safely within the confines of hell, Abel breathed a sigh of deep and endless comfort.  Even if it was no longer _his_ hell, it still felt exactly the same way.  He took another breath and relished in the scents of long dead fires and ancient, unfathomable magic.  It felt really good to be back, but at the same time, Abel couldn't help but question whether or not he'd been disingenuous when he had referred to Tokyo as his home.  
  
    Whether or not the demons here chose to acknowledge, much less obey, his whims, he still felt powerful and in control when he was here.  On the other side?  Not so much.  Back in Tokyo, in that insufferable lockdown, he felt like only slightly less of a bumbling moron than he had been during the entirety of his own ordeal.  In either scenario, he was just winging it as best he could.  The only real difference was that his life was no longer on the line.  
  
    But the fact that Abel still thought of it a lockdown said a lot; it clearly wasn't one.  There were no government officials herding anyone like a bunch of terrified cattle.  There didn't seem to be much of a city to contain anyone in anyway.  The staggering amount of damage was nagging at him, but Abel was far too tired to work out that little mystery just then.  He just wanted a chance to breathe and collect himself after the toll the entire day had taken on him.  
  
    Of course, not everything in hell was comforting and familiar.  That statue remained a total enigma that fascinated him every bit as much as it unnerved him.  And he had, apparently, teleported right in front of it.  
  
    Abel sighed as he looked at it.  Exhausted though he was, he was still eager to know her story.  Hers and the boy she had evidently replaced.  He didn't recognize the school uniforms he'd seen the girls wearing, but they'd obviously been somewhere in Japan.  It struck him as a very weird coincidence that of all the humans on earth who could have become the Messiah, it would be a Japanese teenager like him.  Not that he was a teenager anymore, he supposed.  
  
    Still, it was strange to have that in common with someone who had chosen a path that was as polar an opposite to his own as it could have been.  Abel frowned then, and he sat up and draped his arms against his knees.  The sudden movement jostled Pixie, who had apparently been very comfortable on his stomach.  
  
    "Rude!" she snapped.  
  
    "Sorry."  
  
    Abel jerked his fingers through her hair as he stared at the girl some more.  "What's her deal?"  Pixie stared at him as if she wasn't quite sure whether or not she should answer, which was fair, because Abel was pretty certain she wasn't familiar with the concept of rhetorical questions.  He pinched his eyes shut and dug his fingers into his scalp a little too roughly.  "I want to know who she is and where that other guy went.  I invaded her memories somehow, but I don't even know her name."  
  
    Pixie clambered onto his shoulder and patted at his temple.  "I see.  Couldn't you just look again?  Like last time."  
  
    Abel perked up at that.  That was true enough.  Maybe he could stumble onto more memories and piece together what her life was like -- pre-statuehood, anyway.  The idea intrigued him more than he could describe, but before he got too far ahead of himself, Abel paused and glanced down at his wrist.  It was 2:30AM.  No doubt Hibiki would be asleep by now (assuming he was able to -- Abel well remembered trying to sleep on concrete himself).  Besides, it's not like Abel had anything better to do.  Though he was momentarily distracted by how pointless this dumb watch was now that he had a cell phone.  
  
    He pushed that thought aside and climbed to his feet.  He had a few hours before the new day really came out swinging.  May as well, right?  
  
    "Master."  Pixie stopped him, her tiny little fists tugging at the collar of his cape.  Abel halted and swung around to face her.  "Make sure you don't faint again."  
  
    Abel's eyes narrowed into truly serpentine little slits as Pixie snickered at him.  The glare he leveled on her would have been enough to wither the very flesh of a lesser being, but Pixie was proving to be a lot harder to impress.  "You shut up," he said, and he turned away from her to reach for the statue's slender white hand.  The instant his fingers closed around it, he was swallowed by darkness, left suspended between his body and the uncharted depths of her mind.  
  
    He felt something cold touch his cheek, and Abel's eyes snapped open.  
  
    "Due to a malfunction in the switching system, today's rail schedule has been greatly altered."  Abel sat up slowly, utterly disoriented as he peered around.  He was in a train?  He turned his head to face the window he'd been lying against and saw a cheek print marring the fog his breath left behind.  It was too dark to see much but the whirl of movement.  Abel turned away and rubbed at his eyes.  
  
    "We apologize to any customers who were in a hurry.  The next stop is Iwatodai..."  
  
    Iwatodai?  Abel craned his neck again.  This whole situation was weird.  The train seemed so empty... It had to be unreasonably late.  _We apologize to any customers who were in a hurry.  Hope you didn't need to be anywhere before midnight!_   He wanted to glance down at his watch just to confirm his own smug mental sass, but he found very quickly that his body refused to cooperate.  For all of a moment, Abel was intensely unnerved.  He tried to jerk his arm again when realization slammed into his brain, and he remembered just where he was: inside another memory of the mysterious Messiah.  
  
    It freaked the hell out of him that it was so easy to believe he was in control until she decided to break the illusion for him.  Even going into this shit intending to unearth more of her memories wasn't enough to keep him anchored inside his own body.  This girl seemed to encompass and consume his entire identity as naturally as breathing, and Abel had no idea what to make of it.  
  
    Heedless of Abel's uncomfortable musings, the girl climbed to her feet as the train slid to a smooth stop, pulling Abel along whether he liked it or not.  The intercom called down to them again, and the girl lifted her head.  "Iwatodai.  This is the final train bound for Tatsumi Port Island.  Please take care to board before our departure."  
  
    She stepped out of the train and into the station, and it struck Abel how eerily quiet it was.  Tatsumi Port Island sounded like something he should have been familiar with, but he didn't recognize anything here.  The station was so empty and silent it was creepy.  He was half convinced that he'd stumbled onto some Silent Hill shit and would have to navigate through a bunch of rusty gates to get out of here.  
  
    Fortunately for Abel and his flayed open nerves, the girl left the station without incident.  She stepped outside into the cool night air, and Abel immediately wished she'd just turn around and go back inside.  While the island itself was alien to him, the sky that hung overhead was not.  It was that same ugly, cloying green he remembered from the night he and Takeba had been assaulted by that Shadow.  Somehow, it was even worse seeing so much of it at once, bearing down over them like fog and making the very air feel stagnant and oppressive.  He felt like his lungs were too tight to breathe.  
  
    She turned her head, and Abel was startled to see that even the moon looked sickly, and it was so enormous it seemed ready to crash over them any second.  He felt his throat constrict when he realized the girl was swallowing; she was quick to pick up her pace.  
  
    Abel did not like any part of this whatsoever.  He had no idea where his body ended and hers began.  Every cold shiver she experienced tore down his spine.  Every fine hair of hers that prickled with fear stood from the back of his neck, and every anxious beat of her heart pushed against his ribs.  But despite the nonexistent degree of separation between them, he had no way to occupy her head.  He was completely oblivious to who she was or what she thought about any of this.  Abel only knew what she felt, whether it was the cold grip of fear or the ripple of gooseflesh along his arms.  Even if it was terrifyingly intimate, it was surprisingly little to go off.  
  
    The sound of a startled breath jerked Abel firmly from his own head.  He felt himself go perfectly still as the girl stopped at an empty intersection, her gaze sweeping along the road.  The entire street was lined with coffins.  Abel felt his throat go dry.  For several moments, he could feel panic mounting in him when suddenly, something inside him he couldn't quite identify snapped.  Whatever it was, he felt it clamp down on every one of his fragile nerves, leaving him nothing but a weird sort of calm.  
  
    For some reason, the situation seemed a lot further away.  Abel was a bit mystified by it.  Was this what denial actually felt like?  Of course the situation was easy to accept when he didn't have to entertain it.  
  
    He supposed it was better than the alternative.  The girl continued walking, her shoulders straight, her spine tight, and her stride smooth and even.  Abel was impressed, even if he was also kind of concerned.  This chick was stone fucking cold.  She didn't stop until she reached a tall, stately building, and she didn't hesitate before she yanked open the doors and let herself inside.  
  
    Abel balked a bit when she did.  The interior seemed just as miserably green and unfriendly as the sky, though it did seem vaguely familiar.  Abel had a feeling that it was the same dorm from the last memory he saw.  He kind of wished he had paid a bit more attention to the decor in between spurts of running for his life.  
  
    "Welcome."  
  
    That stone cold facade of hers broke a little as she jumped, and Abel felt his insides jolt.  They turned around to see a young boy in some extremely tacky prisonwear.  Abel's lips downturned sharply.  Seriously, horizontal stripes flattered literally no one on earth.  But he ran around in a dorky cape and cat ear headphones, so it was unlikely that anyone would defer to his opinions on fashion.  Pixie certainly didn't.  
  
    The boy ignored him and regarded the girl with bright blue eyes.  Abel decided that Hibiki's were better and infinitely less creepy.  "You're late," the boy said.  "I've been waiting a long time."  He reached out, his fingers clutched around a piece of paper. Abel stared at it.  "If you want to proceed, then please sign here.  It's a contract."  
  
    He paused as Abel continued staring, and then he smiled.  It did make him seem marginally less creepy and spectral, but the boy ruined it immediately when he said, "There's no need to be scared."  Well, _now_ he was fucking scared.  Abel made a sour face that the boy continued failing to react to.  Being such a passive participant in all this was starting to irk the shit out of him.  He dearly wished the girl would talk back to this little weirdo, since he couldn't just do it for her.  
  
    "It only binds you to accepting full responsibility for your actions."  Christ, he said everything in such a blithe tone.  Abel didn't trust this kid in the slightest, but it's not like he could tell the girl to throw the contract in his face and find a less hostile dorm to live in.  She was doing the opposite, in fact; Abel felt his waist fold as she bent forward, examining the paper.  
  
     _I chooseth this fate of mine own free will._  
  
    Beneath it was a blank line.  
  
    Even as Abel blanched, the girl accepted a pen, her pale hand poised over the contract.  She wrote _Arisato Minako_ in neat little strokes.  When she was done, the boy's fingers closed over the contract, and it vanished right before Abel's eyes.  
  
    "...Very well."  The boy smiled and tilted his head faintly.  "Time is something no one can escape.  It delivers us all to the same end.  Wishing won't make it go away.  And so it begins..."  The longer he spoke, the more Abel felt the slow climb of a deep-seated, existential sort of dread.  Whatever he spoke of, it felt...inevitable.  It _was_ inevitable, Abel reminded himself sullenly.  He remembered Minako's face in the mirror.  She looked identical to her statue.  Abel had a dismal sort of feeling that it was her time this little boy spoke of with that blithe, shitty tone, and he had a worse feeling that it was very, very short.  
  
    The boy melted into the ether even as Abel watched him, and he reared backward with his jaw clenched.  
  
    His vision went dark.  Abel very nearly panicked again until he sat up, something hard and sharp digging into his ass and the backs of his thighs.  He looked down to see that he was sprawled on top of lava rocks, his cape draped around him like black water and his headphones skewed on his face.  Abel sucked in a deep breath.  He tilted his head back to see the statue looming over him, that same placid look on her face and her arms stretched out, ready to embrace him.  
  
    Abel swallowed.  
  
    "Did you find anything?"  Pixie climbed onto his shoulder, her small weight and her tiny fingers a welcome comfort.  Slowly, Abel nodded.  
  
    "Minako."  
  
    "What?"  He could feel her shuffling against him, tilting her head and folding her wings.  
  
    "Her name," he answered back.  "Her name was Minako."


	12. Chapter 12

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm going to be totally honest. I had not realized it had been almost two months since my last update. I am so sorry for the wait! I hope that this chapter is enough to make up for it. My winter break is coming up in a couple of weeks, so I hope to have more time to devote to this story.
> 
> As always, this chapter was beta read by Naoya. Thank you so much, Naoya!

 

 

* * *

 

 

    Abel's right eye cracked open.  He regretted it the moment he did, however, as light bored into his skull through his eye socket and sent his brain pulsing like an oversized heart.  "Ow," he said.  He closed his eye again and shifted across the dusty lava rock digging into his back, but he made no attempt to sit up.  He was far too exhausted to try.  His head hurt, his limbs felt weighted down, and his chest felt...thick, like he was trying to breathe through two inches of chyme.  
  
    "Master?"  Abel could feel Pixie's tiny hands as she crawled up the length of his torso, and he made an irritated noise when her sharp little knees dug directly into his sternum.  When she touched his face, he made another sound of displeasure, but he didn't bother to open his eyes.  She didn't seem panicked, so Abel doubted very strongly that he was dying.  It just felt like he was.  Then again, those drama queen tendencies were nothing new, so Abel finally groaned and squinted out from between his eyelashes.  "What happened?"  
  
    "I think you fell asleep."  
  
    Abel was nonplussed.  He hadn't slept in two years, and now he was just going to take a fucking power nap on a bunch of rocks?  It seemed more likely that he had just passed out again, and Pixie was being kind enough not to make fun of him for it...but frankly, Pixie wasn't that kind.  At least as far as his fragile ego was concerned.  
  
    With a slight wheeze, Abel sat up and rubbed at his face.  "Did I pass out again?  You can just tell me if I did, you know.  I've already resigned myself to the fact that I am literally the worst King of Bel in the history of Bels, so there's not much you can say to make me feel like a more ineffectual monarch."  
  
    He was fully prepared for an onslaught of teasing since he had essentially invited it, but instead, Abel felt his knee bounce as Pixie landed on it.  She cocked her head at him and patted the back of his hand.  "Your Lordship, you are not the worst King of Bel.  You should have seen the last one.  He was defeated by a scrawny little human boy!"  
  
    Abel actually giggled at that.  It was as raucous as a giggle could be before it crossed the line into a straight up guffaw, in fact, and he reached for her hair to muss at it adoringly.  "Good point. I-"  
  
    Abruptly, Abel stopped.  For the first time since waking, it occurred to him that he had no idea how long his normal sleep cycle would be now, assuming he even had one.  If it was in any way proportional to just how long he'd been awake--  
  
    Panic surged through him so hard he felt his face go numb.  _Hibiki_.  Abel could not believe he fucking fell asleep.  What if he'd slept through another two years?  Or more?  Before he could get a hold of himself, his mind swarmed with thoughts of a ravaged planet earth.  What if he'd slept through the entire ordeal?  He could imagine nothing but scorched earth.  He saw Tokyo leveled entirely.  He saw the earth hewn in two and hovering pathetically in a mass of empty space, its surface littered with nothing but rubble and corpses.  He saw masses of demons chewing at the charred, brittle bones of Hibiki and his friends, and his heart jackhammered into his ribs like it was determined to break through them.  Abel jerked his hand up to his face and scrabbled desperately for his watch.  
  
    The watch face blinked serenely back at him.  It was a little before 6:00 AM.  Only a few hours had passed by.  His breath left him in a huge rush, and Abel collapsed onto his back, his fingertips digging into his eyelids.  _Fuck_.  
  
    "Erm, Master?"  
  
    "Pixie."  
  
    Abel sat up again and fixed his friend with a deeply serious expression settling hard over his features.  She stared back at him, and her wings folded backwards.  The way she was looking at him kind of pissed him off, like she was convinced he was about to pull out an axe and start going ham or something.  "...Yes?"  
  
    He reined in the urge to yell at her.  "Don't let me pass out again.  Seriously.  That shit is awful."  
  
    "Well _I_ wouldn't know!" she shot back.  Abel ignored that particular jab and climbed to his feet.  Eugh, his chest felt so gross.  He rubbed at it, but it didn't exactly alleviate the sensation of trying to breathe through fluid.  The feeling kind of reminded him of what it would be like to have a Shadow sitting puddled in his lungs -- which only served to drive the point further that his day was already ruined.  
  
    Pixie fluttered above his shoulder and perched on it, ignoring his attempt at ignoring her.  "Master.  Maybe you should stop.  It's hurting you.  And making you kind of crabby."  
  
    Stubbornly, Abel remained silent, but he wasn't able to keep his jaw from tightening.  Pixie was probably right, but he refused to admit it.  No matter how much his jaunts into Minako's memories freaked him out, he felt a strange obligation to continue them.  It was insane that she was left utterly alone to her fate, trapped down here forever with nothing and no one to keep her company.  He could at least offer her that much, whether Minako was actually aware of him or not.  Besides, he still hadn't figured out what kind of malevolent creature she was protecting them from.  While he very genuinely wanted to stave off the eternal loneliness she was doomed to, he could admit that part of it was simple selfishness.  The mystery that surrounded her was ridiculously tantalizing to him, and he despised not _knowing_.  
  
    He almost snapped when he felt Pixie yank at his hair, but he was bound and determined not to respond to her, even just to be a dick.  Fortunately for his black mood, Abel didn't have to keep it up for long.  Fed up, Pixie grit her teeth and tumbled off his shoulder.  "Fine!! You never listen to me anyway!"  She zipped away and left him to stew by himself.  It was becoming a common theme between them, but Abel couldn't find it in himself to blame her for it.  He'd been a real fucking sad sack lately.  
  
    Abel huffed to himself and lifted his chin, fixing his gaze on the statue.  All things considered, he felt that Minako could probably stand a break from him for a few hours.  That, or _he_ could stand to take a break himself.  He'd only seen a couple of her memories, but they were enough to leave him like -- well, this.  Regardless, either scenario left him in the same position considering he was the only one who could walk away.  
  
    Abel did just that.  
  
    Dirt plumed up around his shoes as he walked across the stone, the yawning caverns around him coming alive with the echoes of his footsteps.  Pixie had only been gone for a few minutes, but he already felt crushingly alone.  He had no Pixie, no Atsuro, no Minako, no Hibiki.  The air around him was stagnant, and his only companion was his own power that drifted around him, unsettling the pebbles surrounding his feet and disturbing yet more dirt.  
  
    Abel fucking hated it.  Since when could he not just be alone here?  He used to relish in this place.  He felt utterly alive when he was here, surrounded by the ozone smell of magic and sparks of fire alighting across his skin.   This was his fucking domain.  This was where he belonged.  This place warped and shifted with each of his errant thoughts, and now he was going to be god damned resentful of it?  Or, worse, afraid of it?  
  
    He nearly tripped into a gaping crack in the ground when his brain finally connected the dots.  Abel was still trapped behind the door.  This place wasn't his domain any more than these demons were his vassals.  This place didn't change for him because he very much didn't belong there.  It made sense that he would feel out of place when there wasn't one there for him to begin with.  
  
    Of course, being aware of that didn't exactly make it any easier to deal with.  It actually kind of made Abel feel worse, like being in some hollow imitation that looked and smelled and sounded like his home while it waited to eat him alive.  It made his skin crawl.  
  
    Maybe that's why he felt so shitty.  Pixie had had a point.  He _was_ being a lot more irritable than he usually was.  He didn't used to be like that, did he?  Pixie wasn't here for him to ask, but he felt pretty certain that he had been a lot more chill than this before the lockdown.  He just...couldn't remember.  
  
    That seemed like a bad sign.  Abel frowned to himself as he skirted across the edge of the ravine.  Atsuro could have told him.  Surely Atsuro wouldn't have been willing to put up with him if he'd been this much of a high-strung asshole, right?  So then when had this transformation even come about?  
  
    His head gave another hard throb that was painful enough to drop him like a stone, and Abel's fingernails bit into his scalp.  "Ow, ow, ow," he hissed.  Apparently now wasn't going to be the time for any deep memory dives of his own, though he wasn't sure that trying to remember what his own fucking personality used to be like really constituted a deep dive.  
  
    Abel got back to his feet, and for not the first time, he had to admit to himself that Pixie was definitely right.  Sifting around in Minako's memories was really fucking him up a lot more than he could have anticipated.  More than likely, it was something to do with how ludicrously strong she was, and there he was subjecting himself to it on the most intimate level he possibly could.  It was little wonder that she left him damn near hobbled every time he resurfaced.  
  
    It occurred to him then that perhaps it was less Minako herself and more what she stood for.  He was the King of Bel.  His choice was fundamentally incompatible with her own.  She was a savior who protected the free will of all mankind by sacrificing her own life; Abel stood across the chasm from her as a tyrant who controlled the very fabric of his own dimension.  Maybe she was simply rubbing off on him, and that's why he felt so unacquainted with this new hell.  Just because it didn't belong to him hardly meant that he had to feel like an alien here.  
  
    He wasn't sure he liked either of those two explanations especially, but the second one left at least a little room for a slice of optimism.  Whether it was correct or not, it did give him an idea: he could simply explore it and get acquainted with this place.  
  
    For the first time in a long time, Abel actually felt excited.  It made him feel a little more human, perhaps ironically.  The idea of getting to do some sight-seeing was a welcome respite from all the other chaos, even if he would prefer to do it with Pixie at his side.  With an actual goal in mind, Abel leaped across the chasm with his cape billowing behind him.  
  
    Gods, it was nice to fly again.  Truthfully, Abel could have done it at any time before, but he was feeling a masochistic sort of need for punishment after being such a massive fuckbarn to Pixie.  As he sailed across the inky black of the crevice below, Abel allowed himself the space to indulge in the sensation of his hair whipping back from his face and magic rolling across his skin.  
  
    Abel drifted aimlessly for almost an hour.  As he'd guessed, this place shared very little with his own hell.  They certainly had the general aesthetic in common, but beneath that thin veneer, it was missing several of the landmarks Abel had grown familiar with as he had explored back home.  He sought out the skeletal deer only to find it missing entirely, though the bone forest that had surrounded it remained intact.  The only things that were truly the same were Minako and the labyrinth of doors, and even they were hardly identical given the extremely obvious differences from their counterparts back home.  
  
    A little after 7:00 AM, Abel touched back down to the ground.  While he hadn't discovered anything earth-shattering, he did feel more like himself.  He was ready to go look for Pixie to apologize to her, but before he could, something caught his attention from his peripheral.  Abel craned his neck to see two particularly sophomoric demons facing off -- or at least, they appeared to be.  But the longer he stared at them, the more he realized that neither of them were advancing at all, which seemed kind of anticlimactic for a fight.  Abel was tempted to ignore them and leave them to what was surely the world's most boring staring contest when both demons erupted into a tower of electricity that hummed like a buzz saw.  
  
    Abel was immediately consumed with curiosity.  He moved closer, his eyes sharp with intrigue.  He couldn't even see their bodies through the piercing light that devoured them both.  All he could make out was a blur of shapes and noise while the air thrummed so hard he could feel it against his skin.  
  
    Abel hadn't the faintest idea what was happening.  Were they fusing?  He'd never actually seen a fusion if that was, indeed, what was happening.  He could see the shapes spinning faster and faster as the vibrating air reached a fever pitch, swelling into its crescendo.  
  
    He bit his lip and reached out for the tower even as Pixie's voice reverberated in his head.  _Don't touch it!_ , she'd shriek, and she'd probably pull his hair for good measure.  He knew better.  It would be fucking insane to shove his hand into a swirling miasma of lightning and blended demon parts.  What kind of moron would touch it?  
  
    Abel was exactly that kind of moron, and he shoved his entire arm into the lethal-looking tower until his fingertips connected with fur.  
  
    The entire world tore around him.  He was sure he could hear the rip of time and space itself as he plummeted down into a black hole he couldn't see, his fingers locked into a death grip around tender flesh and fur.  
  
    He landed on something hard and unforgiving, his spine cracking against it and the breath rushing out of his lungs in a wet gasp of pain.  Dizzily, he opened his eyes to see a whole lot of grey.  
  
    "Abel?!"  
  
    The voice was a familiar one.  Abel tilted his head.  He wished dearly that he had a camera or something, because the look on Hibiki's face was absolutely incredible.  
  
    "Hey, Hibiki."  He let go of the fur and sat up to see an equally dizzy rabbit sprawled across the ground looking even further out of commission than Abel did.  Its very skin was stitched together, and its ribs were bouncing in and out like a stress ball as it tried to catch its breath.  Abel had never seen a demon like it before.  
  
    He had more important matters to attend to than sparkly new demons, however.  He pushed himself up onto his hands to see Hibiki still stunned speechless, sprawled rather like Abel on a small bed with his phone clutched in his hand so tightly that his knuckles had turned a pearly white.  The poor kid looked horrified.  
  
    Silence stretched between them for what seemed like a millennia.  Hibiki's bright blue eye darted from his phone, to Abel, and then back again until he regained enough mental faculties to speak.  "I- Is that going to happen every time?!"  
  
    "Consider it a two for one deal.  Sorry to drop in on you like that."  Abel was content to get up on his own when Hibiki scrambled up from the bed, and he thrust his hand down to help Abel stand.  It was awfully sweet of him, especially considering that Abel had just scared the shit out of him.  
  
    "Are you okay?  What just happened?!" Hibiki blurted.  
  
    That was a good question.  Abel wasn't entirely certain himself.  He bent over to rub at his aching back and took the chance to glance down at the hare he'd latched onto.  He watched it shake its head, its ears flopping back and forth.  "Eugh... Looks like we're partners now.  I hope you didn't expect a better greeting!  My head hurts," it muttered, and it gripped at its muzzle with its front paws before it winked back out of existence.  
  
    "Was that your first fusion?" Abel asked.  He realized he was ignoring Hibiki's question, but his curiosity was getting the better of him, as it so often did, and he really couldn't have offered a satisfactory response to it anyway.  
  
    Slowly, Hibiki sank back down on his bed.  He still had his fingers curled around his phone as if he were afraid to let go of it.  Abel imagined that had a lot to do with their first meeting and the poor impression he had no doubt made.  "Er, yeah.  I only got the e-mail about it a few minutes ago."  
  
    It figured that Abel would find a way to fuck up Hibiki's very first fusion.  "Ahh, Christ.  I'm sorry.  I assure you that won't happen every time.  Just bad timing."  That and he was an idiot with a reckless disregard for personal safety.  
  
    When he looked over at the other boy, Hibiki was still staring back at him with disbelief etched into his face.  His black hair was even more wild than Abel remembered.  Probably he'd only just woken up a short bit ago.  Abel rubbed at the back of his neck and had the grace to at least appear kind of sheepish.  
  
    "Really, I'm sorry about that.  It was an accident.  So...where am I?"  Abel took the opportunity to look around the room with poorly concealed wonder and a vague hope that he could distract Hibiki from asking more questions.  It seemed like Hibiki was actually sleeping in a building, and it appeared to be a really nice one too.  It was a far cry from Abel's memories of sleeping in parks and shit.  It even had a bed and everything.  Pretty swanky.  
  
    "Oh."  Hibiki blinked as his eyes followed Abel pacing around the room.  "Uhm, we're in the Diet Building.  JP's, specifically."  Abel could see a bit of tension leak out of Hibiki as he warmed to Abel's theme.  He could practically imagine the boy's thought process.  If Abel wasn't going to make a big deal of exploding into being in his room, then by god, neither would he.  
  
    " _Jips_?  The hell kind of name is that?"  Abel wrinkled his nose, but the sour expression didn't last long when Hibiki's lips began twisting into a small grin.  
  
    "Dunno.  It definitely wasn't my idea.  Actually, it's an acronym for something, but it's really long, and to be honest with you, I can't remember what it is.  Something about Japan and meteors?"  
  
    Abel snorted in amusement.  JP's obviously referred to those people in yellow he'd seen with Hibiki before.  It really was a stupid name.  A bunch of astronomy nerds weren't going to have digs like that and a building like this.  Did they think they were being clever or something?  "I see."  
  
    He couldn't think of what to say to fill the silence.  The last time they spoke, Abel blamed his own piss poor manners on demons.  Apparently they'd also robbed him of his ability to converse like a normal person.  When the silence was beginning to teeter over the wrong side of awkward, Abel cleared his throat and whirled on Hibiki before he could even think to get a word in edgewise.  
  
    "So, uhm, I wanted to apologize about before.  You know, the whole...basically all of it."  Hibiki hadn't exactly invited him to, but nevertheless, Abel eased himself down onto the edge of the bed and fiddled with the hem of his cape.   "To tell you the truth, I was kind of overwhelmed by everything, and I wasn't handling it well."  Man, that sounded like a load of meaningless bullshit even to him.  What was he even trying to do?  Convince Hibiki that he wasn't a totally out of touch demon king who treated cell phones like an eighty year old technophobe?  Why?  
  
    In spite of his own frantic, jumbled mess of intentions, Abel pressed on.  "Er, I was actually on my way to a convention."  Abel wanted to fucking kick himself.  That was what he was going with?  Really?  Literally anything would have been a better alternative, but that was what came out.  He felt like he'd just made a grave mistake.  
  
    Beside him, an expression of understanding schooled Hibiki's features together.  A grave mistake indeed. "So you _are_ a cosplayer?"  
  
    Abel couldn't stop himself from wondering what would happen if he just punched Hibiki in the face.  If he could actually hit him hard enough to reduce the boy's entire skull to a fine powder.  Abel suspected that he could, but instead, he gripped so hard at his bicep he could almost hear his muscles screaming.  "Yep," he chirped, and he repeated to himself over and over that Hibiki couldn't help it.  He wasn't to know of the walking embodiment of the breadth and depth human naivete that was DOLLY.  It wasn't Hibiki's fault that Abel had been saddled with that animated cluster of shitty catchphrases and misplaced self-righteousness.  
  
    He could tell he'd been quiet for too long.  Abel was quick to let go of his arm and lean closer to Hibiki with the hope that his face came off as earnest more than it did completely psychotic.  "Yeah, exactly.  See, I'm told I go a little overboard at conventions because I get really into character and that's kind of what happened when I met you.  It was really dumb and I'm sorry.  Can we start over?"  
  
    A little desperate for his taste, but it would work.  As deeply as it infuriated him, running with the idea of being a cosplayer like Midori would make the most logical sense to explain why he'd acted like such a basket case before.  In fact, it actually seemed to appease Hibiki.  The boy looked thoughtful and nodded to himself.  "Oh.  That makes sense."  He frowned, then, his eyebrows furrowing delicately.  "I don't recognize your outfit.  What were you cosplaying from?"  
  
    Abel very nearly panicked.  "Oh, uhm, yeah, it's kind of a newer thing, actually.  It only just came out.  Coincidentally it also had demons and stuff, which is why I said all that dumb shit to you, which was totally inappropriate even if it was also kind of apropos, and there's a demon king and all that..."  
  
    God, he was the world's worst liar.  Had he always been this terrible at being convincing, or was it a new thing like his being an irritable little shit?  He'd have to ask Pixie about that later.  
  
    Luckily for him, Hibiki didn't seem like he was about to laugh at him or call him out on it.  Very kind of him.  "Are you talking about that new RPG?"  
  
    "...Yes.  Yes, I am."  Bless Hibiki.  Abel kind of wanted to kiss him.  
  
    Oblivious, Hibiki tilted his head and frowned again.  "So that whole summoning thing?  You already knew about it?  We only got the e-mail a few minutes ago."  
  
    For a moment, Abel tried not to make it obvious that he was chewing at the inside of his cheek trying to come up with yet more bullshit, but this time it dawned on him a little more quickly.  "Yeah, I got that too."  He pulled out his shiny new cellphone and flipped it open with a smile.  "See?  I'm a demon tamer too."  
  
    Hibiki gave him the benefit of peering at his phone.  He looked a little taken aback, though, and he tossed Abel a mildly inquisitive sort of look.  "It says you don't have any demons?"  
  
    That sure took the wind out of his sails.  Sourly, Abel narrowed his eyes.  "I didn't say I was a _competent_ demon tamer."  
  
    At that, Hibiki giggled, and he leaned back onto his elbows.  "Alright, alright.  So you're a demon tamer and a cosplayer.  Totally normal guy.  Does that new RPG have dudes busting in in the middle of a demon fusion too, or was that all you?"  
  
    Abel did not want to kiss him anymore.  In fact, he kind of wanted to wring Hibiki's neck and demand that he stop thinking about stuff.  Clever little bastard.  He opened his mouth to attempt yet more inadept lies, but Hibiki was faster than him.  
  
    "You're not going to tell me the truth, are you?"  To Abel's surprise, Hibiki didn't seem annoyed -- simply curious.  It was very much evident to him that underestimating Hibiki's intelligence wasn't going to do him any favors.  All it was doing was making him look like an embarrassing weirdo.  
  
    He leaned back with a softly amused sort of sigh.  "I would if I thought it would benefit you at all."  
  
    Abel watched Hibiki's head bob once.  "So you really don't know what's going on?"  
  
    "I really don't.  Sorry, kiddo.  I will say that if you start to hear any whisperings of Bels or Devas, you are cordially invited to call me a liar, but for right now, I'm operating under the assumption that I don't know shit about dick about your situation."  Hibiki laughed a lot harder than Abel felt anything he had just said really warranted.  It was kind of nice, though, and he allowed himself a slick little grin.  "I didn't have you going for even a second.  You were just going to let me keep talking myself into a hole, weren't you?"  
  
    Hibiki just stared at him with a crinkle in his nose and his lips pulled into an amused curl.  "Come on, Abel.  How gullible do you think I am?"  
  
    "Well, it seems disingenuous to say how much _now_."  
  
    Another laugh erupted from Hibiki.  "I guess that's true."  
  
    He was taking it like such a champ.  Abel wasn't sure he'd be able to handle someone like him with so much grace if he were in Hibiki's position.  After a beat, Abel spread his arms.  "Listen, I was at least honest about some of it.  I am sorry for how shitty I was to you.  I was a real assbag."  
  
    "It's fine, Abel."  Hibiki smiled brightly, and Abel was struck once more by how bright his eyes were.  He had eyes like that once.  
  
    Abel shook his head straight out of that thought process, because he wasn't about to let his mind wander down that path.  Not right now.  Instead, he focused on Hibiki as the boy climbed up from the bed and stretched his arms over his head.  "You're being a little harsh, I think.  You threatened me and all, but it didn't seem like you were being serious or anything.  I've had people say worse things."  
  
    "Really?  To _you_?"  Abel wasn't sure why that surprised him so much.  Hibiki seemed to ooze likability.  Then again, maybe that's why people said worse things to him.  There was such a thing as being too charming.  
  
    "Yeah.  I-"  Hibiki paused.  His attention was firmly arrested by something he could see through the window, but all Abel could see was how much his whole face suddenly seemed to shine.  "Daichi's back!!"  
  
    "What?"  
  
    Hibiki pulled away from the window with his rabbit ears whipping behind him.  "Daichi!  He went to go check on his house -- our houses, technically, since he lives so close to me.  Come on, let's go see him."  
  
    "Slow your roll, champ."  Abel knew exactly how he felt about wandering throughout what was evidently JP's home base: nothing good.  "It's true that I don't know what's coming your way.  But I do know what came my way, so I'm going to ask you this as a friend--"  
  
    Hibiki was still as a stone.  Abel could admit that it was kind of nice.  When Hibiki looked at him that way, he was fully aware that Hibiki was offering him every last scrap of his attention.  "...Don't tell anyone I'm here.  Please.  Not even your friend."  
  
    "I won't," Hibiki said, and Abel knew it was a promise.  He nodded his appreciation.  
  
    "Thank you.  That being said, you won't be rid of me that easily."  His lips twisted into a wicked little grin.  "I am deeply curious about you, Hibiki.  If you'd do me the honor, I'd like to see those things coming your way first hand."  
  
    He watched Hibiki's painfully blue eyes open wide.  "What do you mean?" he asked.  
  
    "I promise I won't get in the way."  After all, Abel had an idea.  He had no idea whether or not it would work, but it was worth a shot.  And if it worked?  Oh, was he ever going to have fun.  He lifted both his arms with a dramatic flare and shoved both his sleeves up, his hellish eyes never leaving Hibiki's face.  
  
    Magic exploded throughout the room.  His cape billowed out like a black fan, swallowing even the sunlight that filtered through the window.  Abel could see Hibiki stumble backwards into the wall as pressure rolled across his skin, further tousling his hair and tangling his hoodie's ears.  
  
    And just like it swept in, it surged back out until the air fell still once more.  
  
    Hibiki rubbed at his eyes before he stopped.  "Abel?"  He blinked and jerked his head.  "...Abel?!"  
  
    From beneath his cape, Abel meowed back at him.


	13. Chapter 13

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter was beta read by NaoyaMinegishi. Thank you, as always, Naoya ♥
> 
> I sincerely apologize for the delay in this chapter. School has been brutal. I hope you enjoy the chapter and appreciate your patience.

* * *

 

 

    "A- Abel!"  
  
    Abel meowed again, and he squeezed his eyes shut as a rustle of fabric rushed over him.  He looked up to see Hibiki's face looming over him, pinched into a look of fear, but Abel was amused to see it edge closer into the realm of wonder the longer Hibiki stared at him.  A long silence stretched between the until Abel punctured it with another sweet meow.  If Pixie were there, she'd no doubt call him out on his bullshit, but Hibiki didn't know him well enough to see it for what it was.  
  
    Instead, poor Hibiki remained thunderstruck.  Abel grinned to himself and curled up, rolling onto his back and drawing his fuzzy blue paws beneath his chin.  "I'm just fuckin' with you," he said.  
  
    Hibiki clutched at his chest and slid backwards.  "Oh my god."  
  
    It wasn't enough to make Abel actually feel bad, but it was a _little_ close.  "Sorry to freak you out.  To be honest with you, I didn't think that would actually work."  He rolled over in favor of crouching, balancing himself on his tiny paws and peeking down at the new, thoroughly alien body he was occupying.  "This is so trippy.  Hey, scratch my belly."  
  
    He scampered closer to Hibiki and threw himself onto his back, stretching  his limbs towards the ceiling.  Hibiki's lips pursed deeply.  "I feel like this is a trick."  
  
    "Oh, come on.  Have you ever encountered a real cat in your life?  Some of them actually do like it."  Abel opened his eyes and stared up at him with as critical a gaze as he could manage when his eyes were so fucking huge.  Hibiki didn't look very chastised, though, so he could only imagine what the attempt must have looked like.  It would seem there was a dark side to being too cute after all.  
  
    Nevertheless, Hibiki relented.  He reached down, hesitating a moment before he scratched at Abel's fuzzy tummy.  After a beat, he seemed to melt, and a goofy grin seized his lips.  "Awww.  Are you gonna stay like this?  I bet Io would like Abelcat."  
  
    "Dunno.  I'm thinking about it."  Abel closed his big feline eyes again and settled in to enjoy Hibiki's attention.  Cats had it fucking made.  No one ever criticized _them_ for sleeping fifteen hours a day.  He would consider doing it more long term, but he seriously doubted that Pixie would be down to scratch his ears for him all the time.  "This is just temporary.  I figured this way, I could be a little less...obtrusive.  I'm really not up to fielding a bunch of questions from your friends, and I doubt you are either."  
  
    For a long moment, Hibiki didn't respond to him at all.  Abel blinked at him and managed a tiny frown, which felt bizarre, so it was also a very short one.  Finally, Hibiki sat back on his haunches and cocked his head.  "Man, it is really off-putting watching your mouth move like a person's."  
  
    "Oh."  
  
    Well, that made sense.  Abel rolled over again hunkered down on the ground to get a feel for the bread loaf posture.  Cats were so weird.  "Sorry.  I guess it would be."  He started to continue when he fell short, remembering quite abruptly that Hibiki had been excited to see his friend before Abel fucked it up.  Eugh, this whole attempt at friendship had been a complete bomb.  He wished it had been his actual intention to monopolize Hibiki's time and attention, because at least then he could consider it a rousing fucking success.  
  
    Apparently the dejection was apparent even on his little kitty face, because Hibiki was starting to look worried.  Abel shook his head roughly, his ears flapping against his skin.  
  
    "Eugh, I'm sorry.  The whole point of this exercise was to get out of here without also getting you harassed by a bunch of astronomy geeks in yellow.  I've taken up enough of your time.  Come on, let's go meet your friend."  
  
    "Ah, right!"  Hibiki stayed down long enough for Abel to hop into his lap, climbing up along his body and dropping into his hood.  With Abel safely hidden away, Hibiki was free to wander the building without possibly being detained.  Truth be told, Abel hadn't the foggiest idea if their stupid phones would be able to recognize him at all, but he wasn't eager to find out.  Sure, the JP's guys were okay letting their little ragtag gang crash overnight after defeating that awful, screeching hell monster, but Abel wasn't an idiot.  He had no reason to believe their good will would extend much further if they discovered Hibiki harboring a demon king.  Even if that demon king was unbelievably cute and also very charming.  
  
    Hibiki, on the other hand, didn't seem even remotely worried, and he climbed to his feet with Abel curled comfortably in his hoodie.  As awkward as it was to be less than a foot tall, Abel did have to commend himself.  It was a really good idea.  He was the perfect size to perch in the rabbit hood, safely cloaked from view and given free reign to stare his fill.  Assuming that no one significantly taller than Hibiki had to talk to him for any reason, anyway.  Okay, clearly it wasn't a perfect plan, but it suited their needs for the time being.  
  
    "Where are we again?"  Abel popped his head up just enough to talk into Hibiki's ear, very nearly making the poor boy careen into a nearby rail.  "Right, whiskers.  I have those now.  My bad."  
  
    "You're gonna have to not do that."  Hibiki winced and rubbed at the shell of his ear.  "The Diet Building, remember?"  
  
    Ah, that's right.  Abel squinted at it and settled back into the hoodie.  Everything was so fucking... _gold_.  The bright lights made everything nearly offensively shiny.  "I see they had their decorators go for tasteful and understated."  
  
    Abel preened as he earned a snicker from Hibiki, but the validation proved short lived when the boy shushed him.  "I thought you said you were going for unobtrusive."  
  
    "I suppose I did say that," Abel conceded, not a little grudgingly.  "I'm guessing the lovely JP's staff won't be so keen to let you sleep over again if they catch you talking to a cat in your hood."   He sank to the bottom of said hood and fell silent.  Even though he was the one who suggested it, it was surprisingly difficult to keep his mouth shut.  Having an audience for his snarky opinions was nice after going such a long time without one.  
  
    Still, there was nothing for it.  Abel remained silent in favor of taking in their surroundings.  As gaudy as it was, the building was legitimately nice.  It had power, rooms, beds...all things considered, Hibiki's first night was a god damned luxury in comparison to Abel's.  Hibiki and his friends were essentially put up in a four star hotel while he and Atsuro had to get comfortable very quickly with the idea of sleeping only a precious few feet away from a bunch of corpses.  
  
    Christ, he hadn't even thought about that in ages, but the instant he was reminded, Abel was utterly assaulted by it.  His spine tightened against the phantom stab of rocks digging into his flesh.  He remembered the revulsion he felt at his own clammy skin when he woke up at five in the morning to the sensation of cold dew soaking through his clothes.  He'd had to press against Atsuro and pray he didn't wake, but the cold was so fucking unbearable it had seemed worth it to have that awkward conversation in the morning if he did.  By the time Hibiki stepped outside, the smell of soil and wet loam was buried deep in Abel's nose and turning his stomach inside out.  
  
    Abel shook his head again as if to banish the memory from his skull, and he opened his eyes to see bright sunlight and the welcome sight of the Diet Building from the outside.  The subdued brick was much more familiar than the bizarre JP's interior.  Hibiki stepped between the pillars lining the entrance and lifted an arm to wave at the shape of a guy standing a little aimlessly near the front steps.  The sight of him was a deeply welcome respite from the swarm of unpleasant memories; Abel raised up just enough to get a peek of the other boy without Hibiki noticing.  
  
    Hibiki paused on the last step.  Abel noted the way his hand faltered as he took in the expression on his friend's face.  "What's wrong, Daichi?"  
  
    So this was the one who sent a delivery truck swan diving into a space monster.  He was a far cry from the boy Abel had seen yesterday.  His skin was a bit more ashen today, and his brows were drawn tightly -- at least until Hibiki's words snapped him out of his stupor and startled the hell out of him.  
  
    "Wah!"  Daichi turned with a bit of a flail, which seemed a lot more in line with Abel's first impression of him.  This kid definitely came off like a fucking spaz.  "Hibiki!... Don't scare me like that, man! ...I- Is that a cat?"  
  
    Busted.  Abel turned to see Hibiki staring at him.  He meowed at Hibiki with as much innocence as he could muster.  "Yeah.  Just a stray I picked up."  Hibiki's tone was a little more pointed than Abel cared for.  He plucked Abel out of his hood and set him down on the ground, but he was quick to look back up at his friend.  Even if Abel was pretty dedicated to feeling scolded, it was hard for him not to notice how upset Daichi was as well.  It made he and Hibiki both hesitate.  "Er, more to the point... Are you alright?"  
  
    Daichi's eyes dropped to the ground.  Abel felt comfortable taking that as a hard 'no'.  He watched the boy shift his weight from foot to foot, almost trying to avoid Hibiki's gaze.  "Oh.  Um...  Actually, I was...trying to figure out how to break it to you," he admitted.  His voice wavered a bit.  Eugh, if he cried, Abel wasn't sure he could handle that mess.  He'd done quite enough of that himself lately.  A physical reminder of how stupid he probably looked was the last thing he wanted.  
  
    Daichi did not cry, but he sounded ever closer to it the longer he spoke.  He shut his eyes tightly.  "Did Makoto already tell you?  She said she would.  She sent Io and I with a JP's escort to go see our houses."  Abel frowned a bit and stole a glance up at Hibiki, who nodded along as if he had already known that.  "Yeah.  That didn't happen.  All these buildings were collapsed, there were fires everywhere...  We, er, didn't get very far. I didn't even get to see my house."  
  
    Hibiki's face fell, but it was clear to Abel that it also wasn't even a little surprised.  Given the damage, Abel was more surprised that Daichi was at all.  Then again, these kids were pretty firmly grounded.  They certainly didn't have the luxury of flying around the ruins of Tokyo like he did.  
  
    Daichi opened his eyes again and finally looked up.  It seemed like it took concentrated effort on his part to actually meet Hibiki's gaze.  Abel couldn't help but feel for the poor kid.  "Since we're from the same neighborhood, I think your house is...probably in the same shape."  
  
    An enormous silence collapsed right in between them.  Hibiki bit at the corner of his lip.  Abel could imagine that that was a lot to absorb.  It probably didn't help that Daichi seemed to be teetering on the edge of a nervous breakdown.  
  
    "Ugh... Gimme a break, right?"  Daichi pushed a hand to his face, rolling the heel of his palm against his head and shoving his hair back.  "Shit.  I'm just making it worse than it is, aren't I?"  He was obviously trying really hard to compose himself for his best friend.  "That wasn't even my point," he added, "it's not like they found our parents..."  
  
    Hibiki opened his mouth like he wanted to speak, but it snapped shut just as quickly as a wavering sort of smile seized Daichi's lips.  "I mean, they're not dead.  So we'll see them again eventually, right?"  
  
    Abel couldn't help but wonder to himself if denial counted as optimism.  
  
    Fortunately, Hibiki was far more prepared to dole out comfort than Abel was, and he tossed Daichi a brilliant smile.  "Right, Daichi.  Of course!"  
  
    Those seemed to be the magic words.  Daichi's entire posture seemed to go slack, and he even managed a breathless sort of laugh.  "Th- that's what I thought!  Yeah, they're fine!  Haha...!"  Damn, Hibiki had known exactly what to say.  It was only four words, but Daichi's world had practically righted itself again.  He was actually smiling genuinely now, his lips no longer half-curled into that weird, partial grimace.  "Alright!  Come on, no more moping around!  We should go see if Io is back!  Oh, but-"  
  
    Daichi grinned as he looked down, and he popped down to one knee.  Abel was happy enough to trot over to him and flop down on his back.  "You should take this little guy.  I bet she'd like him!"  Abel rather thought she would too.  Who wouldn't, really?  Daichi wasn't so bad himself, because he was offering Abel some prime chin scratches.  He paused, though, cocking his head as Abel blinked up at him.  "A- Are his eyes red?  That's kinda creepy..."  
  
    Eugh.  Abel rolled over and flattened his ears in irritation.  The nerve of that pleb!  
  
    Hibiki stifled a little giggle as he scooped Abel into his arms.  "They are a little creepy, but I think he's a good sort."  As if to appease him, Hibiki rubbed sweetly at Abel's tender ears until he found himself purring against his will.  Cats seriously had it made.  Everyone just expected them to act like assholes and then found it endearing.  Maybe he _should_ think about doing this more full time...  
  
    Before he was ready for it, Hibiki dropped him into his hood and grinned.  "I think you had the right idea.  Let's go find Io.  I hope she's okay."  
  
    Whether she was or not, they'd likely find out soon enough.  Abel settled comfortably in Hibiki's hood and watched the sky as he and Daichi fell in step.  He was eager to see what the rest of Hibiki's friends were like.   Besides that, he was more than ready for a day out in the sunlight.  
  
    He could still feel the weight of cemetery dew heavy on his skin.


	14. Chapter 14

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> I'm back from the dead! And with a degree in game programming!
> 
> I'm so sorry for the huge delay between chapters. I'll be posting two today and have already started work on the next two. Thank you so much for your patience. I deeply appreciate your comments and kudos even despite the radio silence on my end.
> 
> This chapter was beta read by Naoyaminegishi. Thank you, Naoya! I'd be lost without you!

* * *

 

    Hibiki had only been out and about for about an hour by the time Abel decided he completely understood why cats sunbathed. That shit was _sublime_.  
  
    He'd stayed in Hibiki's hood for awhile as he and Daichi picked up the rest of their little entourage. The taller guy in the pinstriped suit was, apparently, named Joe, and Io was the girl Hibiki had mentioned to him before; he remembered seeing her running towards them the first time he and Hibiki met. They were quite the little rag-tag group, but Abel couldn't pretend like rag-tag groups were something he wasn't intimately familiar with.  
  
    Currently, Io was his favorite. He lounged in the girl's arms, purring like an army of happy little bees as she stroked at his ears and his neck. When she'd taken Abel from Hibiki, she had commented how sweet he was, which Hibiki had laughed at for _some_ reason.  
  
    "I- I've never had an animal take such a shine to me before!" She was so quiet that Abel would be surprised if anyone heard her. It was definitely different to be around someone who was shy and knew what an indoor voice was. Abel rewarded her with another loud purr and rolled in her arms, squishing closer and encouraging her hands on his neck and back. She gave the best scratches by far, probably because her nails were longer and neater than Daichi's, who clearly bit his own.  
  
    Abel had no idea where they were going, but he hardly cared. He really felt like he could nap forever so long as Io kept this up. Everything seemed so far away -- this weird new Hell, the death and destruction -- at least until a slightly familiar voice pierced the serene air, shattering it with little fanfare.  
  
    "Hold it right there...!"  
  
    A little sourly, Abel opened his eyes to see Hibiki darting to the front of the group. Up ahead was that blue-haired JP's woman, and she was giving chase to two ragged looking men clutching cell phones. Abel wanted to groan. He could guess what was going on well before they caught up to the woman.  
  
    Naturally, Hibiki was nearly there first as she cornered the two men before a shrine. "Damn!! What is up with this bitch?!" One of the guys sagged forward to rest his hands on both knees and grit his teeth. Abel studied them both and tried to gauge where they might be in comparison to Hibiki. They didn't seem that impressive. One of them had such heavy bags beneath his eyes that he looked like he hadn't had a good night's sleep in as long as Abel had. Still, he was cautious. He knew first-hand how very alarming it could be when someone you thought you were mostly toe-to-toe with was so bitter they could surprise summon Pazuzu just to ruin your fucking day.  
  
    He tried to get a better look, but poor Io was gripping him tightly, no doubt afraid he'd try and run away.  
  
    "Tell me where you got the summoning app!"  
  
    Damn, that lady sounded pretty threatening. But despite her scary tone, Abel was a little weirded out. Did she not know about the website? Considering Hibiki showed him, it seemed doubtful. Sadly for her, before her stellar interrogation could really take off, a few more generic-looking guys swarmed the shrine. Typical.  
  
    More fortunately, and also a little typically, Hibiki was already on the scene. Having an impeccable sense of timing was probably a requirement to being a hero. Otherwise you were basically just a bystander. "Makoto! Are you alright?"  
  
    "Kuze!" Makoto swung around to face them, and while she still looked perfectly in control despite being so very outnumbered, Abel could spot the relief in the very lines of her body. "Don't let them get away! It's imperative that none escape with their phones. These men have been using the app to harass civilians."  
  
    Hibiki hesitated for only a moment. Abel watched him sweep his gaze across the shrine, taking in the situation before he nodded. "You got it!"  
  
    He wasn't entirely sure if Hibiki was deferring to the only real authority present or if he just trusted Makoto, but Abel sincerely hoped it was the latter. Given that Hibiki was kind of a little shit to him, the goddammned King of Bel, Abel suspected it probably was.  
  
    "Shit!" The little mob was looking panicked now, probably because they knew a protagonist-looking motherfucker when they saw one. One of the blond guys with another stupid pompadour was already making a beeline to escape.  
  
    Damn. There was no way Hibiki was going to catch up with that one. He was way too far away. It hardly seemed fair to expect HIbiki to wrangle up a bunch of thugs who already had the advantage of being out of reach. Abel probably wouldn't give a shit if Makoto hadn't gone and made a big deal about how important it was that none of them get away, but she had, so Abel did.  
  
    He made up is mind quickly. Abel twisted hard in Io's arms and sprung out of them, landing lightly on the ground and bouncing towards the fleeing man as Io cried out for him. He was almost there when the two of them were quite interrupted by a familiar and well-loved sight. Pixie fluttered by with distress on her tiny face, her little hands cupping her mouth. "Master? Master?? Where are you?"  
  
    Both Abel and the gangster skidded to a halt as they saw her, and the gangster shrieked like a banshee. Pixie whirled on him with offense twisting her sharp features. "Excuse me!! Don't scream at me, bonesack!"  
  
    "YOU!" he screeched.  
  
    " _YOU_!" she screeched back, recognition and anger flashing at once in her eyes. Then she looked down and noticed Abel, her eyes opening wide. "...Master!! M- Eh...?!" She took in Abel's appearance with utter disbelief as he grinned at her with his little cat mouth.  
  
    "You have perfect timing, babe. I'm so glad to see you. Will you get rid of this guy? Or at least incapacitate him."  
  
    To her infinite credit, Pixie didn't even hesitate. She sucked in an angry breath and whirled on the man, spreading her fingers and summoning thrumming magic. His cell phone shattered in his hands, leaving the man squealing in fear and hauling ass as fast as possible out of the shrine.  
  
    Pixie touched down to the ground and crouched over him. "Master, what in the world are you doing? Why are you a cat?"  
  
    "I need you to do me a favor. Go pretend like you're Hibiki's demon."  
  
    She frowned back at him and glanced over at Hibiki despite not knowing his name, likely because it was pretty obvious who he was referring to. Hibiki's appearance demanded a lot of attention in comparison to his friends. "Why?"  
  
    "I just need you to help me help him. Also I'm sorry for earlier." Abel headbutted her in the stomach since he couldn't really do anything with his hands. "About being a dickhead, I mean."  
  
    "Well, you're always a dickhead," she pointed out, but she petted him nevertheless. "So I guess it's okay. You're so fuzzy like this!"  
  
    Abel scowled at her. "Can't even take my apology with grace. Eugh, can you help? _Will_ you help, rather."  
  
    Pixie sighed back at him and thrust her fists against both her hips. "He doesn't seem to need any help." Abel turned immediately to see that Hibiki and his friends had summoned their demons and were keeping the others in check, since the last one was thoroughly out of commission courtesy of Abel's delightful companion.  
  
    "Oh," he said.  
  
    Pixie plopped down on the ground and hugged her knees. "I know you like him, but I don't know why you keep trying to do everything for him. I don't think it's a good idea. He needs to learn how to fight."  
  
    "Ugh." Abel grit his teeth. "This isn't a game, Pixie. If I can help him, then I want to do that. It's not like he fucking asked for this just to test himself. He's just a kid, and this is literally life-or-death for him."  
  
    Clearly unimpressed with his tirade, Pixie rolled her eyes at him and propped her face in both hands. "Then are you going to babysit him the whole time? You can't watch him forever. You're supposed to be finding us a way home, too!"  
  
    Once more, Pixie had a point. As annoyed as Abel was about it, she was correct. He huffed and gazed back at Hibiki, who looked to be about done cleaning house when one of the men yelled something Abel couldn't hear. He lifted his cell phone high and summoned a Gagyson. It fucking figured. Abel was hardly fazed, but Hibiki wasn't in much position to take that one on.  
  
    Abel turned to Pixie sharply. "Will you help him _now_?"  
  
    Pixie made a face at him. "I don't see why that woman can't do it- oh, fine!"  
  
    She followed Abel as he darted closer to Hibiki. He already had two demons summoned, which was going to make things a little more obvious than Abel would have liked. Thinking on his feet, Abel focused on the stitched up hare Hibiki had summoned that morning and concentrated. With a little pop, the hare vanished, and Pixie smoothly took his place.  
  
    "There you are!" she exclaimed, slapping both hands to her face. "I was looking everywhere for you, Master! Shall I take out the trash for you?"  
  
    God, he really needed to get a camera. Hibiki made some of the best expressions Abel had ever seen. "I- what?!" Hibiki stammered, and he looked away from Pixie and squinted hard at his phone. He was just fortunate that Makoto was too busy preparing to protect them from Gagyson to notice Hibiki failing to play along.  
  
    Pixie didn't need him to, though. She spun in the air with her arms extending towards the sky, and the world began to rock underfoot as she summoned her Almighty magic. Abel bit his lip. He darted up the length of Hibiki's body, ignoring his cry of surprise, and he landed on the boy's shoulder.  
  
    " _Not that one_!!" he hissed at her.  
  
    Pixie paused and looked back at him with a glare. Her magic fizzled out in a split second, but it hardly mattered, as her face was cold enough to freeze space. Abel was certain that if he could get the Gagyson in her line of sight, it'd die of hypothermia. No such luck, however. An impatient snort plumed from Pixie's pointy nose before she turned away again, and she snapped her fingers.  
  
    Gagyson exploded from existence. Hibiki was stunned only momentarily, and he rushed to break the last man's phone. Pixie surveyed her handiwork a little smugly and then winked out of sight with a pointed stare in Abel's direction. He glared back at the empty space of air she had been occupying.  
  
    Poor Hibiki had no idea what to do with himself. He simply kept staring at Abel while his friends celebrated around the two of them, his eyebrows knit sharply and his lips parted. Abel gazed right back at him before he offered the boy a plaintive meow, and he turned away to trot over to Io. She looked delighted by him winding around her ankles.  
  
    "There you are! I was so worried about you!"  
  
    She scooped him up into arms and held him to her chest. It was a sweet gesture, but her boobs were so improbably spherical that it was a little uncomfortable to try and lie against them. Poor girl definitely needed a new bra, or perhaps a doctor.  
  
    With Abel firmly out of his grasp for the time being, Hibiki had no opportunity to question him, which was how Abel liked it. But he wasn't left to himself for long. Makoto approached him, her eyes sweeping along Hibiki's body as if she could suss out potential injury with her stare alone.  
  
    "I apologize, Kuze. I shouldn't need to rely on you and your friends. Please don't think me ungrateful. I appreciate your assistance. You all did an excellent job. I didn't anticipate your ability to defeat that Gagyson by yourself."  
  
    Io was still cuddling him, but Abel was too curious to pass up the conversation. He squirmed up in her grasp to prop his front paws on her shoulder where he could eavesdrop better. He caught it just in time to see Hibiki beam for the woman. Abel had heard of smiles so bright they could light up a room, but he'd never actually understood what that might look like until he met Hibiki. His grin was practically radiant.  
  
    "No sweat," he assured Makoto. His voice was so earnest that Abel couldn't imagine anyone not believing him. "Really, it was our pleasure, especially after you went out of your way to help Io yesterday."  
  
    Makoto peered at him a moment and offered him a more modest smile in return. "You're a very impressive young man. You're so unfazed. I wanted you to know..." Makoto paused and took a moment to survey the shrine. There was a bit of damage from all the magic being flung around, especially since Pixie had entered the fray.  
  
    She turned back to Hibiki and eyed him very seriously. "You might think me unkind, but I do understand. In such a chaotic state, I'm sure some people look at such an app as their only tool in a world that no longer makes sense. Be that as it may, we'll not sit idly by as civilians are abused. Now that we know our estimation of Nicaea users was so...inadequate, we can better prepare. Thank you again for your assistance. I need to go make my report. Will you four be alright by yourselves?"  
  
    Hibiki said something back to her, but Abel was already bored of their conversation. He nestled against Io's neck and closed his eyes, feeling more than down for a nap. Then again, he might sleep through the entire ordeal if he were to give in to that particular temptation.  
  
    He really needed to find Pixie and thank her. She'd known exactly what Abel had wanted her to do. Still, her disapproval of his desire to help Hibiki rankled him. What did it matter if Hibiki had some assistance? If Abel was going to stay, then he hardly saw the harm in offering the boy a hand when he could. But if it really was hurting him...  
  
    Abel opened his eyes again to peek at Hibiki, who appeared to be deep in conversation with Daichi. Makoto had taken her leave while he wasn't paying attention, but it was just as well. The last thing he needed was her to figure out what he was.  
  
    Daichi seemed down again, but Hibiki looked to be doing his best to cheer him up again. Naturally. Pixie was right...as usual. Hibiki probably _didn't_ need Abel's help. If he were in Hibiki's position, would he have appreciated some omnipresent showboater coming in to do everything for him like he was a fucking infant?  
  
    His ears flattened hard against his head as he admitted to himself that no, he probably wouldn't. If Hibiki really was like him, if he had some grand destiny awaiting him at the end of his week, who was Abel to ruin that for him?  
  
    Privately, he decided that he would listen to Pixie for once in his life and let Hibiki be. He'd only step in if Hibiki really, really needed him to.  
  
    Also privately, he kind of hoped that Hibiki would.


	15. Chapter 15

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> This chapter was beta read by Naoyaminegishi.
> 
> I hope you enjoy the chapter!

* * *

 

 

    Hibiki was quiet as he peered down at the screen of his phone. He could sort of hear Joe and Daichi speaking, but he couldn't bring himself to actively listen to them. Hopefully it wasn't anything important.  
  
    His eyes flicked from the screen up to where Io was standing, and he was met with a steady pierce of red. Abel was still curled up on Io's shoulder, and he seemed to have been staring at Hibiki for awhile. It made him ever so slightly nervous. Had Abel noticed?  
  
    Abel maintained eye contact for a moment more, which struck Hibiki as being a rather brazen acknowledgement of his own staring, before he finally looked away. He rested his furry cheek on Io and closed his hellish eyes again. Hibiki blew out a puff of air and dropped his gaze back to his phone.  
  
    A second Abel stared back at him from the brightly colored screen. The human version regarded him with a cool, static smirk, his cape caught around him mid-billow and his blue hair appearing to have been tousled around his face by an artful wind.  
  
    The Demon Summoning app didn't list his name. Above his head was a series of question marks. Every other field was the same. He had gotten good and familiar with the status screen after poring over it awhile, but this one was of no help at all. Elements, skills, race...every single field.  
  
 _??????_  
  
    "Oh..."  
  
    Joe slid next to him, hovering above his shoulder and peeking over it curiously. With a start, Hibiki snapped his phone shut and glanced up at him. "What's up?"  If Joe had seen what was on the screen, he made no indication of it. He simply regarded Hibiki with a casual pucker of lips, which warned Hibiki that his characteristic flakiness was about to rear its head.  
  
    Hibiki was not disappointed. "So... I totally spaced. I was supposed to come get you guys. Oh well, consider you guys got!"  
  
    "What?! What now, Joe?" Daichi whipped around, an utterly aggrieved expression settling over his face.  
  
    Hibiki just snorted at him in amusement. "Who wanted us 'got', exactly?"  
  
    "Don't encourage him!"  
  
    Joe ignored Daichi smoothly and flicked his cap up with a little flourish of his fingers. "You know! Uhm... That kid. Oh, what's his name? JP's kid. The Chief."  
  
    Hibiki opened up his phone again to check the time. His face didn't change much, but inwardly, he couldn't help but cringe. He really hoped that Yamato hadn't tasked Joe with fetching them too terribly long ago. Yamato did not seem like the type to take the value of his time lightly.  
  
    At his other shoulder, Daichi groaned in irritation. "Oh, that jerk. What should we do, Hibiki?"  
  
    He turned to peer at his friend a little quizzically. "I don't think that was an invitation so much as a request. Besides, that's kinda harsh. He's not that bad."  
  
    Daichi pressed a hand to his sternum and looked so affronted that Hibiki couldn't stop himself from giggling at him. "Seriously?! He tried to throw us in a cell! They wanted to interrogate us! And- and he _laughed at me_! That guy's a total dick."  
  
    Hibiki snickered at him again and flung an arm around Daichi's neck. "You mean when you were dangling off those train tracks? I laughed at you too," he reminded him fondly. "Look, I know he's pretty stand-offish, but think about it. We _just_ fought a bunch of dudes siccing their demons on innocent people. It's not exactly unreasonable for JP's to have assumed the worst, you know?"  
  
    Daichi was still frowning, but he did look at least a little appeased. It was dashed immediately though when Joe sauntered over to his other side to throw his arm around him too, essentially squishing Daichi between himself and Hibiki.  
  
    "Come on, just go see him! He's not going to eat you, right?"  
  
    "Get off me!!"  
  
    Hibiki slid his arm away to step out of the fray and nearly bumped into Io. She had her arms around Abel like he was a baby, and he was curled up and content as...well, a kitten. He looked to be asleep, too.  
  
    He lifted his eyes back up to Io and offered her a smile. "You holding up okay?"  
  
    "Mmhm!" She brightened and smiled back for him, adjusting her arms and being careful not to jostle Abel. Hibiki liked Abel, but he felt terrible for not telling Io that she was holding some form of bizarre demon. But he'd already promised Abel he wouldn't. He was just fortunate Abel wasn't being a creep. "I can't believe it... Fighting off those men... We really did it. I feel like I can actually do something to help."  
  
    Hibiki's response was drowned out by the sudden ringing of his cell phone, and all four of them fell silent. Io blinked down at his pants pocket, which was vibrating with enthusiasm. "Are...you getting a call? How?"  
  
    Mystified, Hibiki fished it out and popped it open. The number was blocked. He pushed his thumb into the answer button and held it to his ear. "Hello?"  
  
    "Kuze? This is Yamato."  
  
    Hibiki found himself not at all surprised to hear Yamato on the other end. He straightened his back and peered up at the sky. "What can I do for you?" May as well roll with it. JP's seemed to be the only agency with the resources to combat this disaster. Since they already had demons before Nicaea even existed, it stood to reason that something as simple as connecting a handful of cell phones might also in their wheelhouse.  
  
    "As I'm sure you've gathered, I've decided to register your phones. Nitta and Shijima can expect their phones to connect soon as well."  
  
    Thank goodness. That would be so handy. Even if they were only able to connect with other JP's phones, which was likely the case, at least they had that line of communication open with each other.  
  
    He couldn't think of anything better to say, so he dropped his head and tightened his fingers. "...Thank you. I really appreciate it."  
  
    Yamato's response was smoother and a little more timely than Hibiki's had been. "No need," he said immediately. "We are a state organization, after all. This is nothing to us. By the way, I asked Akie to pass along a message."  
  
    Hibiki glanced at Joe and squinted at him. Joe just made that weird fish face again.  
  
    "Has he done so?" Yamato pressed.  
  
    Hibiki decided not to throw the man under the bus. "Message received. We're on our way. We'll be there ASAP."  
  
    "Excellent. I have something I need to discuss with you." He bid for Hibiki to meet him at the Diet Building before hanging up, leaving Hibiki to slip his phone shut. Yamato didn't sound mad; Hibiki thanked his lucky stars.  
  
    Io blinked at him. "Uhm... Wh- who was that?"  
  
    "Yamato." He relayed the conversation to the rest of them and pushed his hands into his pockets. The other three were pretty enthusiastic about their returned service. Poor Daichi was disappointed by their inability to contact anyone else, but Io seemed to have expected it as Hibiki had.  
  
    Their chatter seemed to get Abel's attention. If he'd had been asleep before, he was wide awake and listening now. Abel tilted his head to stare at Hibiki and flicked his tail. Hibiki grinned back at him and opened his arms. Demon creature or no, Abel was pretty adorable, and he'd gone out of his way to help Hibiki. Even if the help he offered was as bizarre as Abel himself.  
  
    "Meow!"  
  
    Abel leaped out of Io's grasp with grace and hopped into Hibiki's outstretched arms. Hibiki deposited the cat back into his hood and turned to his other friends. "So, to JP's, then?"  
  
    "Well, it's like you said." Daichi shrugged helplessly and propped one hand on his hips. "Not like we have a choice. Unlike Joe, and you, apparently, I _do_ think Yamato might eat us. But what do I know? To JP's."  
  
    With Abel tucked safely away in his hood, Hibiki wound up taking the lead, and his friends fell into step behind him as they headed for the Diet Building. Whatever this meeting with Yamato entailed, he hoped it was short.  
  
    He had an awful lot of questions for his cute little companion.


	16. Chapter 16

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> This chapter was beta read by Naoyaminegishi.
> 
> Thank you, Naoya! ♥

* * *

 

 

    By the time they reached the Diet Building,  Hibiki was feeling optimistic. He'd had a civil conversation with the intimidating Yamato, he'd helped Makoto do a small bit of good in their ravaged world, and he'd seen his companions bounce back from some truly troubling news.  
  
    They made their way down to the belly of JP's to find Yamato waiting for them with an icy look on his face, and Hibiki's optimism abruptly curled up in a ball and died. He stared hard at Hibiki and frowned. "You're late. Get to the command center."  
  
    So much for not being mad.  
  
    Yamato turned away with brisk strides, leaving the four of them to make their way to the command center on their own. Hibiki shifted towards Joe and squinted at him again, but the man appeared to be ignoring him happily, humming some Western song he didn't recognize. Hibiki tried to look at him as witheringly as he possibly could, but he obviously didn't have the sort of mastery over it that Yamato did.  
   
    Hibiki sighed and headed for the command room while Daichi hissed something in his ear that sounded distinctly like, " _See! Total. Dick._ "  
  
    It took a bit of effort to find the command center. They were still brand new to the facilities, after all. Yamato likely would have found himself having to wait a lot longer had Makoto not come across them bumbling around like morons and escorted them there herself. When they arrived, she neglected to follow them in, which Hibiki found kind of strange.  
  
    But he was given little opportunity to question it. They were herded inside to face down Yamato once more. He might have been annoyed with them, but describing Yamato as mad was, perhaps, pushing it. He seemed perfectly placid as they fell into a sort of semi-circle around him, Daichi peering around a little wildly and Io taking a more measured stock of the room. There were all sorts of fancy monitors and expensive-looking equipment. It was actually pretty cool, all things considered.  
  
    Yamato folded his arms and regarded them with an expression so neutral it was impossible to read. "Well, then. Let's begin."  
  
    It wasn't the first time Hibiki had been addressed by Yamato, obviously, but something about this particular encounter made him feel like it was. Yamato had been distant every time they spoke -- literally. He had stood several feet away from him during the encounter with Dubhe, and he'd only barely offered him a passing glance when he had first discovered Makoto offering them access to the building.  
  
    This was the closest Hibiki had ever been to him, and it was hard not to be distracted. Yamato was so pale all over that from far away, it was hard to really pick out his features. Up close like this, it was easier to see that he had the flawless skin of someone who very likely wasn't out in the sun for more than ten minutes at a time, and his features were surprisingly elegant.  
  
    As Yamato spoke, it struck Hibiki that he was startlingly beautiful. Startling in that he'd never really seen a man he would describe as beautiful, but also in that if he were to come across Yamato in a dark alley, he would be extremely startled. While he had the sort of features that reminded Hibiki of an aristocrat, Yamato looked and acted like an aristocrat who had definitely stabbed someone before.  
  
    He blinked as he noticed Yamato's pale eyes narrowing faintly, and the man's head shifted the tiniest bit. "...Kuze. Are you listening?"  
  
    "Wh- Yes, of course." Damn. Hibiki straightened like a scolded school boy, and he felt like a fucking idiot. He couldn't believe he'd been staring at Yamato hard enough to zone out. "Go right ahead. I promise I'm listening."  
  
    Yamato was quiet for a few seconds. Hibiki's stomach felt bizarrely knotted as he awaited his response, but to his infinite relief, Yamato's lips twitched into a thin smile. "Impatient, are we? I'm getting there."  
  
    His arms unfolded and motioned shortly towards the four of them. "So. Now that you've been escorted home, as we promised, you are aware that your daily lives have been destroyed. You no longer have homes to return to."  
  
    Hibiki couldn't help but be taken aback by how blunt he was, even if he wasn't necessarily surprised by it. On either side of him, Io and Daichi were so overcome they couldn't even bear to meet Yamato's expectant gaze. At his back, he could feel Abel stir a bit before the cat fell still.  
  
    If Yamato noticed that he'd just taken the wind out of their sails and then smashed their masts with it, he didn't indicate as much. He continued on almost conversationally, still peering at them with his uncannily pale, sharp eyes. Hibiki found the shape of them to be quite striking, even if Yamato was harshing his buzz in a bad way.  
  
    "I have a proposal. We were contacted recently by the JP's branch in Osaka. I'll be traveling there shortly."  
  
    Osaka? Hibiki blinked at him in surprise. "Really? But the damage here is so far-reaching." It seemed really strange to him. Even if Osaka itself was safe, which seemed deeply unlikely, Hibiki couldn't imagine how they would actually manage to travel there. Especially after he'd nearly been crushed to death by a subway car. Then again, it seemed pointless to voice such a concern. If Yamato felt like he had enough of a reliable way to get there, he probably wouldn't be inviting them on this little jaunt. After a bit, he tilted his head. "Is Osaka safe?"  
  
    Yamato lifted his shoulders in an almost flippant shrug. "Who knows?" Definitely flippant. "It would be simpler to see for ourselves, don't you think?"  
  
    Well. It was hard to argue with that logic. Wait. Hibiki stared at him again. Apparently Daichi caught it as well, because he interrupted with an inelegant splutter. "Ourselves? _Our_?"  
  
    "I'd like you to accompany me there." Yamato paused. "To Osaka," he added, as if they were simple.  
  
    Io exchanged an alarmed glance with Hibiki. He could see the question in her eyes, but he could hardly answer it. He shrugged back at her, his brows raised and his head shaking slightly. He didn't have the foggiest idea why Yamato would want to schlep them all the way to Osaka when the most impressive thing they'd ever done was kill a monster by pure dumb luck.  
  
    "Wait... You're talking about us?" And there was Joe. Hibiki watched Yamato watch Joe, one of his pale brows lifting slowly. For a long moment, Yamato didn't dignify him with a response at all. He gazed at the empty spot beside Joe, then slowly turned his head until he had surveyed the equally empty spot beside Io. Hibiki was kind of impressed. He had never seen sarcasm that was purely visual before. Yamato didn't even look smug as he did it.  
  
    Finally, Yamato looked back at Joe with his face still perfectly impassive. "Yes," he said mildly. "I mean all of you."  
  
    "Alright." Hibiki stepped forward. "We're in."  
  
    "W- Wait, what?!"  
  
    Yamato had been about to respond when Daichi stepped right in front of him, rounding on Hibiki as if betrayed. "Dude!! Why are you so okay with this?! Why do we have to go to Osaka?"  
  
    Yamato had been remarkably chill before, but Daichi apparently trod on just the right nerve. Hibiki peeked back at the man over Daichi's shoulder as his eyebrows furrowed sharply, his upper lip curling. Hibiki pushed Daichi off to the side, but it was too late to do damage control.  
  
    Yamato folded his arms crossly and regarded Daichi with the most unimpressed look Hibiki had ever seen on a human face. "Tell me something. Do you believe that this will go away on its own? Do you think your lives will return to the way they were if you sit and wait for someone else to handle this for you?"  
  
    Daichi turned as much as he could with Hibiki's fingers still wrapped around his bicep. "That's not- I mean, no, of course not, but how are we supposed to do something about it?"  
  
    Yamato's lip curled yet more harshly. The look on his face made it seem like he had completely anticipated that answer and was not happy to have his expectation met. "If you believe there's nothing you can do, then you do think this will be solved by others while you sit and wait for salvation. Disabuse yourself of the notion immediately. You are not helpless. If you want to survive this, then act like it."  
  
    Hibiki bit his lip. Yamato was harsh, but he spoke the unvarnished truth. JP's was the only agency left which was in a position to do something. If Hibiki and the others were going to be taking advantage of their hospitality, it seemed only fair to repay it by helping them do what little they could.  
  
    Yamato breathed an impatient sigh through his nose and shifted on his feet as he regarded them. "Osaka will provide the sort of intelligence we cannot gather here. If we can get to the root of this calamity, then perhaps we can 'do something about it'. If you're willing to act, then I'll be waiting for you at Shinbashi at 10:00. If not, then step out of the way and let others do the work you're unwilling to."  
  
    Apparently they were dismissed. Yamato turned away from them with a flick of his jacket. Before he left entirely, however, he stopped and gazed back at Hibiki in particular. "...I look forward to seeing what you decide."  
  
    He nodded shortly and disappeared, leaving Hibiki to relax his grip on Daichi.  
  
    A heavy silence settled over them. There wasn't just a whole hell of a lot one could say to that. Hibiki sighed and patted Daichi's arm, offering the boy a smile. "He's right. I think this would help, and it's the least we could do."  
  
    Beside him, Io nodded slowly. "I- I think so too. I would...I'd like to go. I think we can help...maybe find a solution?"  
  
    Hibiki glanced around the chilly room. "Whatever we decide, we can talk about it outside, right? We'll go from there."  
  
    The sentiment was nice, but Hibiki suspected they had less of a choice than was presented. It's hardly as though they had anything better to do.  
  
    The four of them made their way outside, Io speaking to Daichi while Joe pretended to be surprised to hear that they'd likely be making the journey. Of all the people Hibiki could be stuck doing this with, he was awfully glad it was these three.  
  
    Well...these four.  
  
    He could feel Abel getting restless in his hood, and it made him smile to himself.  
  
    He just hoped Yamato hadn't noticed him there.


	17. Intermission

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> This intermission was beta read by Naoyaminegishi!

* * *

  

    That had gone exactly as well as Yamato had anticipated it would. It couldn't be helped, of course. Civilians would always do as civilians did. At the end of the day, he hardly required their assistance. Yamato Hotsuin did not require _anyone's_ assistance.  
  
    Still, despite himself...Yamato found that he was interested. Kuze was an odd one. By all accounts, an ordinary boy. But per Sako's reports, he had an uncanny knack in battle. He found it intriguing to hear that someone with less than twenty four hours worth of access to demons had nevertheless grasped their utility near effortlessly.  
  
    Of course, he could be coasting on pure luck up until now, but Yamato hoped to find that out in Osaka. He may be yet surprised.  
  
    "Chief Hotsuin?"  
  
    Yamato's face smoothed like glass as he turned to face his subordinate. "Yes?" She was holding some sort of folder in front of her like a shield. Apparently, she was not entirely convinced that Yamato would not bite her for annoying him.  
  
    "I- I apologize for interrupting you. The monitors picked up an overwhelming surge of magnetite in some of the quarters."  
  
    Yamato stared at her. "Have they not already been inspected?"  
  
    The woman flinched slightly. "N- No, sir. It's...the reading-"  
  
    Yamato pinched his lips and pressed forward, winding around her. "Which room was it?"  
  
    "Kuze's room, sir."  
  
    He fell still at that. It seemed only natural that an anomalous output of magnetite would register from Kuze's room, of all people. "I will investigate myself."  
  
    Consumed with curiosity, Yamato made his way to the quarters with his coat billowing behind him with every powerful stride. It was likely he wouldn't find anything of interest at all in the actual room, but he was intrigued nevertheless. If Hibiki truly had summoned something he ought not have, it would obviously be with him, but that didn't mean that taking a look would be a waste of time.  
  
    He found Kuze's quarters and knocked. Of course, there was no answer, so Yamato let himself in. The room was empty.  
  
    Of people, at least.  
  
    Besides the sparse furniture, the room held nothing but a pile of...fabric. Yamato frowned softly. Clothes on the floor. How childish. Then again, he didn't recognize them. Hibiki had been wearing the same clothing from the day before. They'd hardly been afforded the opportunity to pick up spare clothes, after all.  
  
    Since he'd already gone through the effort to come here, Yamato stepped forward to toe through them with a furrow in his brow. What in god's name were these? There was an actual cape on the floor. Honestly.  
  
    A waste of time after all. Irritation pricked at him as he stood, but before he left, something caught his eye. Something searingly orange was poking out of the pile. It seemed strange amidst the rest of it, which were all muted blacks and reds. Or...pinkish reds, anyway.  
  
    Yamato hesitated before he reached for it, plucking it from the pile.  
  
    Immediately, his entire face twisted. There on the fabric was printed a...giant, monster-sized kitten surrounded by fire and helicopters. Yamato was utterly baffled. What was he even looking at?! This was the most ridiculous thing he had ever seen in his life. Was this a joke?  
  
    He was so consumed with trying to understand what it was that it took several moments to register.  
  
    He was clutching at a pair of used boxers.  
  
    Yamato recoiled from it like he was holding a spitting cobra and dropped it on the floor. He stormed out of Hibiki's room and slammed the door shut behind him.  
  
    Ugh.  
  
_Civilians._


	18. Intermission 2: bonus round

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> even his hair is offended


End file.
